Mary E. Gallagher, Amy and Alan Lowenstein Professor in Democracy, Democratization, and Human Rights, has been appointed director of U-M’s International Institute.
Gallagher, who also is a professor of political science in LSA and a research associate professor in the Institute for Social Research’s Center for Political Studies, is a specialist in Chinese politics, comparative politics of transitional and developing states, and law and society.
She enters this role with a deep familiarity with the International Institute, having been director of the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies since 2008. Gallagher will lead the institute through June 30, 2025.
Gallagher received her Ph.D. in politics in 2001 from Princeton University and her Bachelor of Arts degree from Smith College in 1991. She was a foreign student in China in 1989 at Nanjing University.
She taught at the Foreign Affairs College in Beijing in 1996-97 and was a Fulbright Research Scholar in 2003-04 at East China University of Politics and Law in Shanghai, China. In 2012-13, she was a visiting professor at the Koguan School of Law at Shanghai Jiaotong University.
Gallagher is an expert in Chinese politics, law and society, and labor politics. Her most recent book is “Authoritarian Legality in China: Law, Workers and the State,” published by Cambridge University Press in 2017.
She also is the author or editor of several other books, including “Contagious Capitalism: Globalization and the Politics of Labor in China,” “Chinese Justice: Civil Dispute Resolution in Contemporary China,” “From Iron Rice Bowl to Informalization: Markets, Workers, and the State in a Changing China,” and “Contemporary Chinese Politics: New Sources, Methods, and Field Strategies.”
She is the author of many articles in academic and non-academic publications, including The Washington Post, The New York Times, Comparative Political Studies, and World Politics. She is a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and has consulted for the World Bank, the U.S. Department of State and Department of Labor, and many other non-governmental and international organizations.
