Authoritarian Commons: Neighborhood Democratization in Urban China

Registration is required for the public and CU affiliates outside of the Law School to access William and June Warren Hall. Please REGISTER by 8 pm on April 14. 

Professor Shitong Qiao will discuss his recent book, The Authoritarian Commons: Neighborhood Democratization in Urban China (Cambridge University Press, 2025)

Based on six-year fieldwork across China including over 200 in-depth interviews, this book provides an ethnographic account of how hundreds of millions of Chinese homeowners practice democracy in and beyond their condominium complexes. Using interviews, survey data, and a comprehensive examination of laws, policies and judicial decisions, this book also examines how the party-state in China responds to the risks and benefits brought by neighborhood democratization. Moreover, this book provides a framework to analyze different approaches to the authoritarian dilemma facing neighborhood democratization which may increase the regime's legitimacy and expose it to the challenge of independent organizations at the same time. Lastly, this book identifies conditions under which neighborhood democratization can succeed.

This event is organized by the Hong Yen Chang Center for Chinese Legal Studies.

Lunch will be provided.

About the Speaker

Shitong Qiao is Professor of Law and the Ken Young-Gak Yun and Jinah Park Yun Research Scholar at Duke Law School. He also holds the title of Honorary Professor at the University of Hong Kong and is a core faculty member of the Asia/Pacific Studies Institute at Duke University. He was previously a tenured professor at the University of Hong Kong, a Law and Public Affairs (LAPA) fellow at Princeton University, and the inaugural Jerome A. Cohen Visiting Professor of Law at NYU.

Professor Qiao employs mixed methods to explore the relationship between political power, law, and private ordering. His first monograph, Chinese Small Property: The Co-Evolution of Law and Social Norms (Cambridge University Press, 2017), investigates how a real estate economy took off without legal titles. His second monograph, The Authoritarian Commons: Neighborhood Democratization in Urban China (Cambridge University Press, 2025), provides an ethnographic account of how hundreds of millions of Chinese homeowners practice democracy in and beyond their condominium complexes.

Professor Qiao has also published numerous articles in top American and Chinese law journals, and won multiple research prizes including the Judge Ralph K. Winter Prize (Yale), the Hessel Yntema Prize (American Society of Comparative Law), and The Masahiko Aoki Award for Economic Paper (Tsinghua). In addition, he has served as an expert witness on the Chinese property regime in China, Canada, and the U.S. He holds law degrees from Wuhan University (LL.B.), Peking University (MPhil), and Yale University (LL.M., J.S.D.).

Registration is required for the public and CU affiliates outside of the Law School to access William and June Warren Hall. Please REGISTER by 8 pm on April 14.