Andrew Nathan

Andrew Nathan is Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science at Columbia University. He has taught at Columbia University since 1971. He served as director of the East Asian Institute at the School of International and Public Affairs from 1991 to 1995 and as Director of Graduate Studies in the Political Science Department since 1997.

His teaching and research interests include Chinese politics and foreign policy, the comparative study of political participation and political culture, and human rights. Nathan''s publications include Peking Politics, 1918–1923 (Berkeley 1976); Chinese Democracy (Knopf 1985); Popular Culture in Late Imperial China, coedited with David Johnson and Evelyn S. Rawski (Berkeley 1985); Human Rights in Contemporary China, with R. Randle Edwards and Louis Henkin (Columbia 1986); China''s Crisis (Columbia 1990); The Great Wall and the Empty Fortress: China''s Search for Security, with Robert S. Ross (Norton 1997); China''s Transition (Columbia 1997); The Tiananmen Papers, edited with Perry Link (Public Affairs 2001); and Negotiating Culture and Human Rights: Beyond Universalism and Relativism, coedited with Lynda S. Bell and Ilan Peleg (Columbia 2001). His articles have appeared in World Politics, Daedalus, The China Quarterly, Journal of Democracy, Asian Survey, and elsewhere. His current research involves collaborative survey-based studies of political culture and political participation in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other Asian societies.

Professor Nathan was chair of the Advisory Committee of Human Rights Watch, Asia (1995–2000) and continues to serve on this committee and on the board of Human Rights in China. He is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Democracy, The China Quarterly, The Journal of Contemporary China, and China Information, among others. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, the Association for Asian Studies, and the American Political Science Association. He does frequent interviews for the print and electronic media, has advised on several film documentaries on China, has consulted for business and government, and has published essays and op-eds in the New Republic, the Asian Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, and elsewhere.

A native New Yorker, Dr. Nathan received his degrees from Harvard University: a BA in history in 1963, an MA in East Asian regional studies in 1965, and a PhD in political science in 1971. He taught at the University of Michigan from 1970 to 1971. He has held a Guggenheim fellowship as well as fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, the Henry Luce Foundation, the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, and others. He has directed four National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminars.

Education

• PhD in Political Science, Harvard University
• MA in East Asian Regional Studies, Harvard University
• BA in History, Harvard University

The Chinese president has consolidated power in order to implement challenging reforms, explains Andrew Nathan. (video)

Trump''s unclear policies allow China''s Xi Jinping to present himself as a strong leader, says Andrew Nathan. (video)