Ya-Wen Lei

Research interests: Political economy, political sociology, economic sociology, sociology of work and labor, science and technology studies, law and society, sociology of media and information technologies, development, and Chinese studies

Ya-Wen Lei is Professor in the Department of Sociology at Harvard University and a Senior Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. She is also affiliated with several centers at Harvard, including the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies — where she is one of the co-leaders of the Taiwan Studies initiative — the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and the Asia Center. Born and raised in Taiwan, she was trained in both law and sociology: she holds an LL.M. and a J.S.D. from Yale Law School and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Michigan. After graduating from Michigan in 2013, she served as a Junior Fellow at the Society of Fellows at Harvard University (2013–2016). In academic year 2018–2019, she was a visiting professor at Sciences Po in France.

She is the author of The Contentious Public Sphere: Law, Media, and Authoritarian Rule in China (Princeton University Press, 2018) and The Gilded Cage: Technology, Development, and State Capitalism in China (Princeton University Press, 2023). She is currently working on a book that traces the reconfiguration of the global economic order since around 2018 — a moment many characterize as a turn away from neoliberal globalization toward an emerging post-neoliberal order. Centered on semiconductor manufacturing, the project examines the relocation of advanced chip production from Taiwan to the United States, with shadow comparisons to parallel developments in Germany and Japan, and attention to how these shifts reconfigure state–firm–labor relations across national contexts.

Her articles have appeared in general sociological journals (Annual Review of Sociology, American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, and Socius), specialized social science journals (Annual Review of Law and Social Science, Law and Society Review, Work, Employment and Society, and Political Communication), and area studies journals (The China Quarterly). Her research has received numerous awards and honors from multiple sections of the American Sociological Association, the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, the Law and Society Association, the Paris Institute for Advanced Study, the American Academy in Berlin, the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, and Harvard University, among other organizations.