Luigi Tomba

Luigi Tomba is a political scientist with a particular interest in China’s political and social change. He is a Senior Fellow in the Australian Centre on China in the World (CIW) at Australian National University (ANU). Born and educated in Italy, Tomba first visited China in 1988. He joined ANU in 2001 after spending several years in Beijing, where he worked for the Italian diplomatic mission. His early research focused on the ideological debates and policy implications of China’s labor reform between 1975 and 1995. Tomba’s best-known work is on urbanization, the social engineering of a Chinese urban middle class, housing, and land reform. His current research interests are informed by China’ urban question—the ideological implications of China’s project to urbanize the country and its social, political, and territorial consequences. His latest book, The Government Next Door: Neighborhood Politics in Urban China, is a study of China’s urban grassroots governing practices and their implication for regime legitimacy (Cornell University Press, 2014). Since 2005, he has been the Co-Editor of The China Journal, an English-language journal on Chinese affairs. In the Australian Centre on China in the World, Tomba is responsible, with Carolyn Cartier, for the China Urban stream of research. He convenes the Ph.D. program and CIW post-graduate education programs.