Dr. Teresa Wright (POSC) Named Inside CSULB Author of the Month

September 4, 2012

The College of Liberal Arts congratulates Dr. Teresa Wright, professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science, for being Inside CSULB’s Author of the Month. Her book Accepting Authoritarianism: State Society Relations in China’s Reform Era (Stanford University Press 2010) asks why the emergence of capitalism in 20th-century China has not motivated Chinese citizens to press for liberal democratic change. Dr. Wright argues that China’s state-led development, late industrialization, and socialist legacies have affected popular perceptions of socioeconomic mobility, economic dependence on the state, and political options; thus, Chinese citizens receive incentives to perpetuate the political status quo and disincentives to embrace liberal democratic change. Accepting Authoritarianism provides a detailed analysis of China’s major socioeconomic groups and serves as an up-to-date, comprehensive, and coherent text on the evolution of state-society relations in reform-era China. It has already been reviewed in the following professional publications: Foreign Affairs, The China Journal, The Chronicle of Higher Education, China Perspectives, The Washington Times, and The American Spectator.

Dr. Wright earned her B.A. in political science at Santa Clara University. She then attended the University of California, Berkeley where she received both her M.A. and Ph.D. in political science. In 2001, Dr. Wright published her first book The Perils of Protest: State Repression and Student Activism in China and Taiwan. In addition to having published several articles, book chapters, and book reviews, Dr. Wright has presented papers at conferences in the United States and Singapore.

Photo courtesy of Dr. Teresa Wright’s website.

Compiled and edited by Cortney Smethurst