Mary Gallagher

Mary Gallagher is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, where she is also the Director of the Center for Chinese Studies, and a faculty associate at the Center for Comparative Political Studies at the Institute for Social Research. Her research areas are Chinese politics, comparative politics of transitional and developing states, and law and society. The underlying question that drives her research in all of these areas is whether the development of markets is linked to the sequential development of democratic politics and legal rationality. Put simply, she is interested in the relationships between capitalism, law and democracy. Her empirical research in China is used to explore these larger theoretical questions.  

Professor Gallagher was a foreign student in China in 1989 at Nanjing University. She also taught at the Foreign Affairs College in Beijing from 1996-1997. She was a Fulbright Research Scholar from 2003 to 2004 at East China University of Politics and Law in Shanghai, China. It was funded by the Fulbright Association and the National Science Foundation. From 2005-2007 she was part of the public intellectual program for the National Committee on US-China Relations, a program that brought together academics and policy makers working on US-China relations. 

Courses Taught

• Authoritarian Politics
• Graduate Seminar in Chinese Politics
• Interdisciplinary Seminar in Chinese Studies: The Social Sciences

Affiliation(s)

• Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies
• Center for Comparative Political Studies

Field(s) of Study

• Developing and transitional states
• Chinese politics
• Law and social change