Thomas Heberer

Thomas Heberer ( born November 13, 1947 in Offenbach am Main ) is a German political scientist and East Asia, particularly China.

Life

Heberer studied anthropology, political science, philosophy and Chinese Studies in Frankfurt, Göttingen, Mainz and Heidelberg. In 1977 he received a doctorate in social sciences at the University of Bremen. From 1977-1981 he was 4 1/2 years as an editor and translator at Publishing Foreign Language Press in Beijing, where he experienced the process of transformation of the cultural-revolutionary phase of reform policies. After his return to Germany he worked as a sworn interpreter. After stints at the Bremen Overseas Museum ( building the permanent exhibition of china ), at the University of Bremen ( Habilitation on the individual sector in China) and the University of Duisburg -Essen ( representative of the Department of East Asian Politics ) he became in 1991 Professor of Economics Chinese Studies at the University of Bremen. From 1992-98 he was Professor of Political Science with a focus on East Asia at the University of Trier, since 1998, a chair of the same name at the Departments of Political Science and East Asian Studies at the University of Duisburg -Essen. Since 2010 he is also Co-Director of the Confucius Institute Metropolis Ruhr at the University of Duisburg -Essen.

Since 1981, Heberer regularly conducts field research in different regions of China by, inter alia, as 1981-82 for national policy and development policy in ethnic minority areas, the development of individual and private sector ( 1986-88 ), rural urbanization and social change in rural areas ( 1993-95 ), the political and social role of private entrepreneurs in China and Vietnam (1996-98 ), the role of ideas in policy-making (1998-2000 ), the role of ethnic entrepreneurs a large ethnic minority ( Yi - Nationality, 1999-2003), to neighborhood districts, participation and communitarian approaches in urban areas ( 2003-05 ), environmental management ( 2005-2009) or the role of local cadres as strategic groups in local development processes.

Heberer is, inter alia, Member of the Editorial Committee of various international journals (such as The China Quarterly, European Journal of East Asian Studies, Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, International Asia Forum, etc.).

By 2009 he was a member of the Advisory Board of the Europe- China Academic Network ( ECAN ) of the European Commission.

Heberer sees itself as a " public intellectual " and has been engaged in this respect again and again against prejudice or biased representations in China reporting.

Publications

Among his most influential book publications in recent years include: Private Entrepreneurs in China and Vietnam. Social and Political Functioning of Strategic Groups. China Studies published for the Institute for Chinese Studies, University of Oxford, Leiden ( Brill ) 2003; ( with Fan Jie / W.Taubmann ), Rural China Economic and Social Change in the Late Twentieth Century, Armonk / London ( Sharpe ) 2006; Doing Business in Rural China: Liangshan 's New Ethnic Entrepreneurs, Seattle / London ( University of Washington Press) 2007; ( with G. Schubert), Political Participation and Regime Legitimacy in the People's Republic of China, Vol 1: The urban space, Wiesbaden 2008; ( with G. Schubert), Political Participation and Regime Legitimacy in the People's Republic of China, Vol 2: The rural area, Wiesbaden 2009; ( with Gunter Schubert), Cong qunzhong dao Gongmin. Zhongguo de Zhengzhi canyu ( From masses to citizens Political Participation in China. ), Beijing ( Zhongyang bianyi chubanshe ) 2009; ( with Christian Göbel ), The Politics of Community Building in Urban China, London, New York ( Routledge ), 2011.