Research Activities: Jennifer M. Rudolph

Accomplishments in past 36 months

Dr. Rudolph’s research focuses on three areas: Chinese administrative history, public policy of China, and urban history of China. Negotiated Power in Imperial China: the Zongli Yamen and the Politics of Reform, her book on bureaucratic restructuring in late nineteenth-century China, will be published in 2007 as part of the highly regarded Cornell East Asia Series. It examines how the Chinese government re-engineered its administrative structure to enable the central government to penetrate provincial and local life. Her recent article in the Chinese Historical Review, explored the new horizontal linkages forged in the late Qing between the parallel territorial and customs administrative hierarchies, resulting in a shift of the nexus of power within the regime to a new institutional organization. This historical view informs our understanding of current economic and administrative reforms in China. Her study of the active integration of Taiwan into the Chinese empire during the nineteenth century demonstrates the importance of shifting ethnic population bases on the island as well as shifting geopolitical realities. Rudolph has also explored the formation of Chinese identities in treaty ports in China.

Externally funded research

Rudolph has played a key role in the grants from the Andrew Mellon Foundation that have maintained the Urban China Research Network. During the last three years, this funding totaled about $1 million.

Work in progress and pending/planned research projects

In addition to her continuing work on the above projects, Dr. Rudolph has begun work on an urban history of Taipei, an increasingly important and increasingly global city. Although most investigations of Taipei focus on the city’s post-WWII economic development, Rudolph shows that much of the city’s urban character must be viewed in terms of its imperial and colonial legacies. Thus, her work spans the nineteenth- and twentieth-century Chinese imperial and Japanese colonial histories of the city, as well as more recent developments. Part of her focus is on the politically driven migration patterns and population shifts that have impacted Taipei’s development. Her research on more recent Chinese history will enable her to strengthen her ties to population researchers associated with the Center.

Contribution to the population research program

Rudolph’s work on the steering committee of the Urban China Research Network has been important to the success of that program. In addition, she serves on the UCRN executive committee and its international advisory board. Her language skills in classical and modern Chinese, as well as in Japanese, have the potential to benefit other researchers as well.

Use of infrastructure cores and activities

Rudolph contributes to and uses the resources provided by the Urban China Research Network housed at the Center, and for her work on renewal proposals for UCRN she relied on the Administrative Core for assistance. As a central member of UCRN, she has benefited from the working-group support extended to it by CSDA.