China: Reforming social and political institutions through diversification and incremental change

This proposal is for funding to develop research collaboration between researchers at the Department of Sociology and Human Geography (ISS) and relevant Chinese counterparts. The application regards a strategic initiative at ISS directed at establishing a ctive and lasting research collaboration within the field of social and political institutional change in China. The proposal consists of three interdependent projects, where the first focuses on changing representations of the family institution and gen der relations. The second project deals with the emergence of new spaces of political representation and the third examines labour rights and trade unionism. The three projects have a shared focus on the gradual character of social and political instituti onal changes. The joint objective for the three projects is to study changes in social and political institutions in China from a perspective that takes into account the often subtle and gradual nature of these changes.