Rate My Professor Anthony Spires

Anthony Spires is Professor of Contemporary Chinese Studies in the Asia Institute at the University of Melbourne's Faculty of Arts, where he also serves as Deputy Associate Dean International (China) and Deputy Director of the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies. He joined the University of Melbourne in January 2018. Previously, he was Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Inaugural Director of the Centre for Social Innovation Studies there. He is affiliated as a research fellow with the School of Philanthropy at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China. Spires earned his undergraduate degree in Asian Studies from Occidental College, including a year as an exchange student at Nanjing University and Beijing University. He holds an MA in East Asian Studies, as well as MA, MPhil, and PhD degrees in Sociology, all from Yale University. Earlier in his career, he spent three years with the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, co-founding and serving as Assistant Editor of YaleGlobal Online.

Spires' research focuses on political sociology, civil society, globalization, organizational development, and philanthropy, with particular emphasis on China. He examines the development of civil society in China, including philanthropy, governmental regulation, and the cultures of non-profit organizations. His studies cover Chinese and outside organizations working on environmental issues, labor rights, HIV-AIDS, education, and other concerns in the context of rapid urbanization and policy changes since the early 1980s. Spires employs qualitative methods such as interviews and participant-observation, alongside larger-scale quantitative studies of grassroots NGOs and philanthropy in China. He has published two monographs in 2024: Everyday Democracy: Civil Society, Youth, and the Struggle Against Authoritarian Culture in China (Columbia University Press) and Global Civil Society and China (Cambridge University Press). He co-edited Varieties of Civil Society Across Asia (Routledge, 2024) with Akihiro Ogawa and Authoritarianism and Civil Society in Asia (Routledge, 2022) with Akihiro Ogawa. His peer-reviewed articles include 'Marketization and Its Discontents: Unveiling the Impacts of Foundation-led Venture Philanthropy on Grassroots NGOs in China' (with Weijun Lai) in The China Quarterly (2020), 'Regulation as Political Control: China’s First Charity Law and Its Implications for Civil Society' in Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly (2020), and 'Advocacy in an Authoritarian State: How Grassroots Environmental NGOs Influence Local Governments in China' (with Jingyun Dai) in The China Journal. He recently served as Consulting Editor for The American Journal of Sociology and is a frequent reviewer for academic publications and presses.