Professor Jane Duckett
- Professor - Edward Caird Chair of Politics (Politics)
telephone: +44 (0)141 330 2871
email: Jane.Duckett@glasgow.ac.uk
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https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5401-5350Biography
Jane Duckett is Edward Caird Chair of Politics and Director of the Scottish Centre for China Research at the University of Glasgow. She is a Fellow of the British Academy (2016), the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2019), and the Academy of Social Sciences (2019). She is also a Guest Professor at Nankai University (Tianjin, China). In 2012 she received the Lord Provost of Glasgow Education Award. From 2014-2017 she was President of the British Association for Chinese Studies.
Prof Duckett's early research on the Chinese state under market reform included a book-length study, The Entrepreneurial State in China (Routledge, 1998). She then (with Bill Miller) made a comparative study of public attitudes to openness in East Asia and Eastern Europe, published as The Open Economy and its Enemies (CUP, 2006). Since then, her research has been concerned with Chinese public policy. She has argued through studies of social welfare, poverty, unemployment and health policies, that the politics behind them and their enormous redistributive consequences make them central to the Chinese state’s marketising project. Her monograph, The Chinese State’s Retreat from Health: Policy and the Politics of Retrenchment (Routledge, hdbk 2011; pbk 2013) drew on comparative political theory to explain the Chinese state’s retrenchment in health care provision between the 1980s and 2003. She co-edited (with Beatriz Carrillo), China’s Changing Welfare Mix: Local Perspectives (Routledge, 2011), a book that investigated China’s evolving social welfare provision. She has also published papers on the Chinese media's reporting of health reform, on public participation in policymaking, and (in Health Policy and Planning and Health Expectations) on the Chinese public's attitudes to their health care system. Her current research into the international influences on domestic Chinese public policies has been published in Europe-Asia Studies.
Prof Duckett studied at Fudan University in Shanghai (1984-5 and 1987-8) and at Nankai University in Tianjin (1992-3). In the late 1980s she worked in the Shanghai office of the American law firm, Paul Weiss. She has also worked in China as a policy and social development consultant on a number of international aid projects. Her research has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, The Leverhulme Trust, British Council, British Academy, and the European Commission.
See her recent paper (with Matthias Stepan), 'The Domestic Politics Behind China's International Engagement', Political Insight, March 2018, pp. 37-39.
See her analysis of 'The 2017 National People's Congress and China's Social Policy Priorities', for the China Policy Institute, University of Nottingham, November 2017.
See also ‘Are Chinese people satisfied with health care?’ Scottish Centre for China Research Briefing Paper 1, April 2016 (with Neil Munro), which reports the results of a public opinion survey of the Chinese population.
Research interests
Current and recent research projects
ESRC & NSFC, 'Remaking Urban Neighbourhoods in China', with Ya Ping Wang (PI), Keith Kintrea, Rebecca Madgin, Julie Miao, Jing Yao and a team at Nankai University led by Sun Tao. £1 million (FEC), 2016-18.
European Commission, 'DirectElectionsChina', with L. Dong. £237,023, 2015-17.
ESRC, 'Performance evaluations, trust and utilization of health care in China', PI, with with Kate Hunt, Neil Munro and Matt Sutton. £508,678 (FEC), 2012-2015.
ESRC, ‘Rising Powers: Unequal Powers, Authoritarian Powers, Unstable Powers?', with Stephen White (PI), Neil Munro and Ian McAllister. £577,174 (FEC), 2012-16.
ESRC, ‘Expanding, Not Shrinking Social Programmes: The Politics of New Policies to Tackle Poverty and Inequality in Brazil, India, China and South Africa’, with James Manor (PI), Jude Howell, Anthony Pereira and Louise Tillin. £327,597 (FEC), 2012-16.
Research contribution and service
- Director, Scottish Centre for China Research.
- Member of the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021 Subpanel 19.
- Trustee, Swire Chinese Language Foundation.
- Member, Advisory Committee of the Universities Service Centre for China Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong.
- Member, International Scientific Advisory Board of the Alliance for Research on East Asia–Ruhr, Germany.
- Member, Economic and Social Research Council Peer Review College.
- Member, Executive Committee and Editorial Board of The China Quarterly.
- Member of the Editorial Boards of Europe-Asia Studies and East Asia: An International Quarterly.
- International Dean, East Asia (2014-2018).
- Member of Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014 Subpanel 27 (2011-2014).
- Chair of the Social Sciences Sub-panel, Hong Kong Research Grants Council (2011-2014).
- Universities China Committee London Vice-chair and Head of Expert Panel (2007-08).
- Co-editor of Politics, a journal of the UK Political Studies Association (2006-11).
Able to comment for the media on
- Chinese politics and society, especially health, poverty and inequality, social policy
- Contemporary China and Hong Kong
Grants
'Remaking Urban Neighbourhoods in China', ESRC &NSFC. With Ya Ping Wang (PI), Keith Kintrea, Rebecca Madgin, Julie Miao, Jing Yao. £1 million (FEC), 2016-18.
‘DirectElectionsChina’, European Commission. With L. Dong. £237,023, 2015-17.
‘Expanding, Not Shrinking Social Programmes: The Politics of New Policies to Tackle Poverty and Inequality in Brazil, India, China and South Africa’, ESRC. ES/J012629/1. With James Manor (PI), Jude Howell, Anthony Pereira and Louise Tillin. £327,597 (FEC), 2012-16.
‘Rising Powers: Unequal Powers, Authoritarian Powers, Unstable Powers?’, ESRC. With Stephen White (PI), Neil Munro, and Ian McAllister. £577,174 (FEC), 2012-2016.
‘Performance evaluations, trust and utilization of health care in China: understanding relationships between attitudes and health-related behaviour’, ESRC. ES/J011487/1. PI, with Co-Is Kate Hunt, Neil Munro, Matt Sutton. £508,678 (FEC), 2012-2015.
'Local "Participatory Democracy" in China' (with Zhu Guanglei and Sun Tao), Hangzhou Development Research Centre, £10,000, 2011-2012.
'Publishing in Chinese Studies', a graduate research student and early career research training workshop organised by the Scottish Centre for Chinese Social Science Research Postgraduate Network, RCUK Roberts Funding, £1,950, 2010.
'Media Reporting of China's Health Reforms, 2005-09' (with Ana Langer), Adam Smith Research Foundation Seedcorn Fund and School of Social and Political Sciences, £2,800, 2009-2011.
Scottish Centre for Chinese Social Science Research Postgraduate Network Launch Workshop, Roberts Fund and Universities China Committee, £2,400, 2008.
'NGOs and the making of health policy in China', Leverhulme Research Fellowship, £18,710, 2006-2007.
'The Lessons of UK Health Reform for China', Universities China Committee, £1,450, 2006-07.
'Public attitudes to openness in East Asia and East Europe' (with W. L. Miller), ESRC, £244,943, 2002-2005.
Chinese Studies Strategic Change Grant (Associate Director of Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow joint programme), Scottish Funding Council, £780,000 (of which £90,000 for own contribution), 2000-05.
'Health Systems Reform: Financing and Governance', British Academy, £5,400, 1999-2000.
'The Political Economy of Health Insurance Reform in China', European Commission EU-China Research Fellowship Fund, €3,250, 1999.
'China's Welfare Reforms: Health and Maternity Insurance System Restructuring', British Council. Academic Link with China Scheme, £21,000, 1997-2000.
'Economic Liberalisation and the Politics of Welfare Reform in Urban China', British Academy, £3,430, 1997.
'Economic Liberalisation and the Politics of Wefare Reform in Urban China', Faculty of Economic and Social Studies, University of Manchester, £3,290, 1996-7.
Scholarship for doctoral research fieldwork in China, British Council, 1992-3.
'Urban government under market reform', ESRC Doctoral studentship, 1991-4.
Supervision
PhD supervision
Jane is an experienced and enthusiastic supervisor. She welcomes enquiries and applications from students interested in doctoral research projects in contemporary Chinese government and public policy - e.g. health, education or anti-poverty policy. Applicants will need very good Chinese and English language skills, as well as training in contemporary Chinese studies or social science research. Jane's doctoral students benefit from a lively and welcoming research environment that includes the Scottish Centre for China Research and its Postgraduate Network.
Current and recent doctoral research students
Ketong ZHANG, researching banking and finance related to China's Belt and Road Initiative (started 2017).
Bastian STRUVE, researching media reporting of 'terrorist' incidents in China (started 2015).
Hua WANG, researches the influence of non-local chambers of commerce on local policy processes in China. Hua graduated in 2017.
Aofei LV, researched Chinese health policy with a focus on understanding policy change during the 2003 SARS crisis. Aofei graduated in 2016, was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam and is
Jane's previous doctoral students have researched China’s village elections (Dr Wang Guohui, now Assistant Professor at Xi'an Jiaotong Liverpool University, Suzhou), environmental politics (Dr Tom Johnson, now a Lecturer at the University of Sheffield), social policy (Dr Daniel Hammond, now a Lecturer at University of Edinburgh), foreign economic policy in the ASEAN region (Dr Ariel Hui-min Ko, now a research associate at National Cheng-Chi University, Taipei), and UK SMEs doing business in China (Dr Carole Couper, now a Lecturer at Sheffield University).
Teaching
Undergraduate teaching
- Level 2B: Comparative Politics (from 2021)
Postgraduate teaching
- Chinese Politics and Society
Research datasets
Additional information
Selected recent lectures and presentations
'Visible and Invisible Challenges for China's Health Care System', Opening lecture, CHEW Conference, University of Oxford, May 2016.
‘Public attitudes toward health provision in China: Is there demand for equality?’ (co-authored with N. Munro, K. Hunt, M. Sutton). Presented at the Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting, San Diego, 21-24 March 2013.
'Political Transition in China', King's College Distinguished Lectures series, King's College London, 5 March 2012.
‘社会保障与全球化：如何对应公众的要求？’ 当代中国社会管理问题研讨会. 南开大学当代中国问题研究中心，天津. 10-11 December 2011.
‘The Media Reporting of Health Reform in China, 2005-09: New socialist narratives, elite disensus and the emergence of spin’ (with A. Langer). Presented at the British Association for Chinese Studies Annual Conference, Edinburgh, 7-9 September, 2011.
'The Chinese State's Retreat from Health', presented at the Institute for Chinese Studies/Contemporary Chinese Studies Programme, University of Oxford, 17 February, 2011.
‘What role for the state under globalization?’, presented at a conference on ‘Public Management in the 21st Century: Opportunities and Challenges’,University of Macau, 22–23 October, 2010.
‘China’s health policies and their impact on marginalized and vulnerable groups’, paper to be presented on a panel ‘Bringing Health Care Services to Marginalized and Vulnerable Groups in China’, at the American Association of Asian Scholars, Philadelphia, 25-28 March 2010.
‘Economic Crisis and China’s 2009 Health Reform Plan: Rebuilding Social Protections for Stability and Growth?’, presented at an international workshop, ‘Dealing with Economic Crisis: Chinese Approaches and Experiences’, organised by the Association for Social Science Research on China, Trier, Germany, 27-28 November, 2009.
‘Health Reform and the PRC Government’s Promotion of ‘Social Harmony’. Keynote lecture at a conference on 'The Impact of the Global Economic Crisis on Social Development: Social Policy Responses in Greater China' at theUniversityofHong Kong, 12-13 November, 2009.
‘Health Politics in China: Explaining State Retrenchment, 1978-2003’. Paper presented at the American Political Science Association Annual Conference,Toronto, 3-6 September 2009.
‘China’s changing health governance’. Paper delivered at a workshop on Urban Governance inChina,University of Turku,Finland, 12-14 August 2009.
R1202 Level 12, Adam Smith Building, Glasgow G12 8RT,
