Min Zhou

Ph.D. 2011 (Harvard)
Assistant Professor

Min Zhou is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology. He completed his doctoral dissertation under the supervision of Jason Beckfield, Peter Marsden, and Martin Whyte at Harvard University. At Harvard, Min was affiliated with the Weatherhead Center for International Studies, and he was a doctoral scholar at Harvard-Yenching Institute. Broadly speaking, his substantive research interests include global and transnational sociology, economic sociology, political sociology, and East Asian societies. Min has also received training in an array of quantitative methods.

Min’s ongoing research interests cover three distinct areas. First, he is intrigued by intensified institutionalization of global norms and governance. His research examines the causes and mechanisms driving global efforts to institutionalize norms and governance. This interest inspired Min’s dissertation project on the role of state institutions and domestic politics in the global human rights regime. He aims to develop a more general theory on the role of the state in global institutionalization.

Second, Min is interested in novel changes in the world economy, especially fundamental transformations of global market networks. His research in this area has produced two articles published in Social Forces and Social Science Research, and it won the Ronald Burt Award from the Economic Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association. Min plans to further incorporate social network analysis into his research, with the aim of developing a more deeply relational account of global trade.

Third, Min maintains a longtime interest in East Asian societies. A prominent trend in today’s international system is the so-called “complex interdependence”—states and societies across countries are intricately connected, and multiple channels of action between societies are used in international relations. The interaction between China and Japan in both the state and civil-society domains is ideal for studying this complex interdependence. He plans to start a project on increasing involvement of civil-society actors in China-Japan relations.

Publications

Refereed Articles

Zhou, Min. Forthcoming. “Participation in International Human Rights NGOs: The Effect of Democracy and State Capacity.” Social Science Research.

Zhou, Min. 2011. "Intensification of Geo-Cultural Homophily in Global Trade: Evidence from the Gravity Model." Social Science Research 40(1): 193-209.

Zhou, Min and Chan-ung Park. Forthcoming. “The Cohesion Effect of Structural Equivalence on Global Bilateral Trade, 1948-2000.” International Sociology.

Zhou, Min. 2010. "Multidimensionality and Gravity in Global Trade, 1950-2000." Social Forces 88(4): 1619-1643.

Book Chapters

Beckfield, Jason and Min Zhou. Forthcoming. “Embedded Regionalism.” Pp. 154-168 in Crisis or Reinvention? New Visions for Market Governance, edited by Kate Macdonald, Shelley Marshall and Sanjay Pinto. Routledge.