Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Kultur-, Sozial- und Bildungswissenschaftliche Fakultät - Institut für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften

Prof. Dr. Sarah Eaton

Transregionale Chinastudien

Name
Prof. Dr. Sarah Eaton
 Sitz
Johannisstr. 10, 4. EG, Raum 403
E-Mail

sarah.eaton[at]hu-berlin.de

Telefon
(030) 2093-66123
Sprechzeiten

Please book an appointment with me using this Moodle course. 

I am the Professor of Transregional China Studies at Humboldt University Berlin and co-founder of the Berlin Contemporary China Network (BCCN). I am interested in the study of contemporary Chinese politics and political economy from comparative and transregional perspectives.

A major focus of my current research is the shifting politics of digital standardization associated with China's emergence as a central player in this critical realm of global economic governance. Since 2024 I have led the ERC-funded Consolidator Grant project, TECHtonics studying the rising standards powers, China, India and Kenya. In a project funded by the German Research Foundation (2023-2026), I compare China and South Korea’s pathways from rule-taking to rule-making in digital standard-setting.

With support of Germany's Federal Ministry of Education and Research and together with colleagues at the HU, I have been working on means nurturing China competence within Berlin's academic landscape.

Before joining HU Berlin in October 2019, I held professorships at the University of Göttingen, the University of Oxford and the University of Waterloo. I have a doctorate in political science from the University of Toronto (2011). Here you find my CV.

I welcome supervision requests from doctoral students working in areas of research connected to my own interests in contemporary Chinese politics and political economy. I also supervise Master’s and Bachelor’s students from the IAAW with interests in transregional China studies, broadly defined. HU students can book an appointment with me using this Moodle course. 

 

Recent Publications

  • Wendy Leutert and Sarah Eaton. “China’s Adaptive State Capitalism and Its International Sources” In The Communist Party of China: Understanding the Durability of the World’s Most Powerful Political Organization, eds. Ben Hillman and Fengyuan Ji. Cambridge University Press (2025).

  • Jiang, Xinhui, Sarah Eaton, and Genia Kostka. "Women's Work: The Gendered Nature of Appointment Politics in Subnational China." Government and Opposition 60, no. 1 (2025): 63-85. 

  • Fuchs, Daniel, and Sarah Eaton. "Practice diffusion in China’s two-pronged engagement in global technical standardization." China Information 38, no. 2 (2024): 157-179.

  • Eaton, Sarah, and Genia Kostka “Environmental Authoritarianism: A Critical Review” with Genia Kostka in Handbook of Authoritarian Politics, Anne-Marget Wolf, ed. Oxford University Press (2024).

  • Eaton, Sarah, and Armin Müller. "Varieties of Chinese Populism: Mapping the Mindsets of Pro-and Anti-System Populists." In Three Faces of Populism in Asia, Shiru Wang, ed. (2024).

  • Jiang, Xinhui, Sarah Eaton, and Genia Kostka. "Provinces in Command: Changes in Prefectural Appointments from Hu Jintao to Xi Jinping (2003-2020)." Journal of Contemporary China 32, no. 144 (2023): 963-983.

  • Fuchs, Daniel, and Sarah Eaton. "Diffusion of practice: The curious case of the Sino-German technical standardisation partnership." New political economy 27, no. 6 (2022): 958-971.

  • Eaton, Sarah, and Saori N. Katada. "A critical node: The role of China in the transnational circulation of developmentalist ideas, policies and practices." New Political Economy 27, no. 6 (2022): 907-915.

  • Leutert, Wendy, and Sarah Eaton. "Deepening not departure: Xi Jinping's governance of China's state-owned economy." The China Quarterly 248, no. S1 (2021): 200-221.

  • Eaton, Sarah, and Reza Hasmath. "Economic legitimation in a new era: public attitudes to state ownership and market regulation in China." The China Quarterly 246 (2021): 447-472.