Murphy Seminar in Political Science: Martin Dimitrov

Each semester The Murphy Institute sponsors a series of seminars organized by the Tulane Department of Political Science that provides an opportunity for faculty, researchers, and practitioners to present their latest research and pressing issues related to topics in political economy. Research presented covers all aspects of contemporary politics science, including comparative politics, public policy, international relations, American politics, and normative theory. Papers are distributed beforehand to the participants who read the paper and prepare discussion questions for the presenter.

Martin K. Dimitrov is the Livingston Family Chair in Political Science; Professor of Political Science; and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Tulane University. He is also an Associate at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard; Associate Editor for Asia of the journal Problems of Post-Communism; and Associate Editor for Inner Asia of The Journal of Asian Studies. His books include Piracy and the State: The Politics of Intellectual Property Rights in China (Cambridge University Press, 2009); Why Communism Did Not Collapse: Understanding Authoritarian Regime Resilience in Asia and Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2013); The Politics of Socialist Consumption (Ciela Publishers, 2018); Dictatorship and Information: Authoritarian Regime Resilience in Communist Europe and China (Oxford University Press, 2023); and The Adaptability of the Chinese Communist Party (Cambridge University Press, 2024). 

He received his PhD from Stanford University in 2004 and has held residential fellowships at the Australian National University and the University of Helsinki, as well as at Harvard (Davis Center and Fairbank Center), Princeton, Notre Dame, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. In 2012, he received the Berlin Prize and Axel Springer Fellowship from the American Academy in Berlin. His work has also been supported with grants from the Social Science Research Council (the International Pre-Dissertation Fellowship Program), the Association for Asian Studies (the China and Inner Asia Council), and the Board of Regents Awards to Louisiana Artists and Scholars (ATLAS) Program. At Tulane, he received the President’s Award for Excellence in Graduate and Professional Teaching in 2020 and the Graduate Studies Student Association (GSSA) Award for Faculty Teaching and Mentorship in 2024. He has conducted fieldwork in China, Taiwan, France, the Czech Republic, Germany, Russia, Bulgaria, and Cuba.