Thomas Heberer | |
|---|---|
| Citizenship | German |
| Education | University of Bremen (PhD) |
| Occupation | Sinologist |
| Employer | University of Duisburg-Essen |
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Thomas Heberer (born 13 November 1947 inOffenbach/Main, Germany) is a Germansinologist. He is senior professor of Chinese politics & society at theUniversity of Duisburg-Essen.
Thomas Heberer studiedSocial Anthropology (major),Philosophy,Political Science, andChinese Studies in Frankfurt, Göttingen, Mainz and Heidelberg.
In 1977, Heberer completed his Ph.D. at theUniversity of Bremen on the Mass Line concept of theChinese Communist Party.[1] The same year he went to China, where he worked as an editor of the German section of thePeking Review inBeijing for more than four years (1977–81).[2] During this time, he witnessed China’s early reform and transformation process first-hand.[3]
Heberer worked from 1983 to 1985 as a research fellow with the Overseas Museum in Bremen (Übersee-Museum Bremen), where he was in charge of the Chinese Collection and established the museum’s permanent China exhibit. He was then appointed as aresearch fellow at the Institute of Geography of theUniversity of Bremen and carried out a research project on the development of the private economic sector in China, funded by theVolkswagen Foundation. His ensuinghabilitation thesis dealt with the role of the informal economic sector of urban and social development in China. In 1989 he received thevenia legendi, or authorization to lecture, inPolitical Science at the University of Bremen.[1]
From 1991 to 1992, Heberer served as a professor of Chinese Economic Studies at theUniversity for Applied Sciences in Bremen.[1] From 1992 to 1998, he was a professor of political science with a focus on East Asian politics at theUniversity of Trier.[1] From 1998 to 2013, he held a chair professorship of political science with a focus on East Asia at theUniversity of Duisburg-Essen’s Institute of East Asian Studies.[1] Upon his retirement in February 2013, he was appointed Senior Professor of Chinese Politics and Society by the university president.[1] He continues to actively pursue research on China and its political and social development.[1]
Heberer has held visiting professorships at:Seoul National University,University of Washington; China Center for Comparative Politics and Economics;National Taiwan University andNational Sun Yat-sen University;Zhejiang University;University of Vienna and Peking University.[1]
Thomas Heberer is on the editorial board of several academic journals, including the International Journal of Political Science & Diplomacy,The China Quarterly (until the end of 2021), the Journal of China in Comparative Perspective, the European Journal of East Asian Studies, theJournal of Current Chinese Affairs, the Journal of Chinese Governance, the Chinese Political Science Review, theInternational Quarterly for Asian Studies, the International Journal of Political Science & Diplomacy, and the journal 国外理论动态/Foreign Theoretical Trends. He is co-founder of the Association of Social Science Research on China (ASC) and was on the Advisory Board of the Europe-China Academic Network (ECAN) of the European Commission.Heberer was the founding director and co-director of theConfucius Institute "Metropole Ruhr" at the University of Duisburg-Essen from 2008 to 2021.[4]
In 1998 he hosted the “Second International Yi Conference” at the University of Trier, and in 2006 he organized a major exhibition on the history, culture, religion, and society of the Yi at the Duisburg Historical Museum. In 2000/2001 he collected 250,000Deutsche Mark among several German institutions for establishing a primary school for Yi minority children inMeigu County including a scholarship program.[citation needed][5]
Heberer is active as a political consultant. Among other things, he has worked on issues such as urban diplomacy or academic and cultural exchange.[6][7][8]
Heberer conducted his first field research in 1981 on the issue of Chinese nationalities’ policies and development policies in ethnic minority areas among theYi (Nuosu), one of the largestethnic minorities in China, in the Liangshan Mountains in Southwestern Sichuan province.[9][10][11] He has continued to work on various aspects of the Yi society such as ethnic entrepreneur and environmental governance, and has been actively involved in creating academic and public awareness for the Yi minority.
Throughout the following decades, Heberer extended his research to study such diverse topics as the development of China’sprivate sector, ruralurbanization andsocial change, the political and social role of private entrepreneurs in China and Vietnam, the diffusion of intellectual ideas into politics,environmental governance,urban communities (shequ), mobilized participation and co-production; administrative reforms; new patterns of governance in rural areas; and the agency of local cadres.[12]
Heberer has also examined the formal and informal political participation and organizational behavior of social groups in China. In the process, he has further developed the sociological concept of “strategic groups” in the context of both local cadres and entrepreneurial groups in China.[13] In addition, he studied social and policy innovations in China, and critical junctures of authoritarian systems. He also worked on new patterns of political representation from a comparative perspective, and on social disciplining and civilizing processes in the context of modernization.[citation needed][14][15][16]
Heberer describes China's robuststate capacity as based on the following five factors: (1) the legitimacy of its political system as viewed by its citizens, (2) the ability to exercise social control and regulation, (3) coercive resources, (4) the capacity to consult and collaborate with emerging social groups and organizations to balance conflicting interests, and (5) the ability to learn from failures and mistakes.[17]
In an op-ed in September 2023 together with another German China scholar,Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer, the authors opted for the release of sanctions against China because they considered the situation in Xinjiang as having shown "clear signs of a return to 'normality' ". After their statements met with criticism from within the German-speaking community of China scholars – which pointed in particular to the highly restricted environment in which the visit took place –, Heberer and Schmidt-Glintzer published another piece a week later in which they attempted to explain their trip.[18][19]
Heberer has authored or co-authored more than 40 books and has also edited or co-edited more than 25 volumes in German, English and Chinese. His English book publications include:[20]
He also attaches great importance to publishing in Chinese and presenting his work to a wider audience in China.[23]
On the occasion of his 70th birthday in 2017,Zhejiang University Press published a Chinese collection of Heberer’s major research articles on China (托马斯∙海贝勒中国研究文选), edited by the political scientist Yu Jianxing.
Among his book publications in Chinese are:
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