JeanY.C.Lin, Ph.D. Faculty Profile

Photo of Jean Lin

Jean  Y.C.  Lin, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

What makes me unique

My research and teaching center on social movements, community organizations, and civic
participation. My new book, “
” looks at how homeownership among the
rising middle-class since the early 2000s cultivated new urban spaces for community
participation and collective action organizing against environmental threats in Beijing, depicting
community-based associational life in an authoritarian regime.

I'm also the part of the , which explores how nonprofit organizations contribute to their local communities. I serve as the PI for the , which launched in June 2019. I also co-created and co-lead the Civic Life of Cities under COVID-19 project in March 2020, which traces 800 nonprofits across six US regions and their responses to the pandemic.

I have also published on topics related to environmental protests, labor movements and leadership, and international non-governmental organizations.

  • Social Movements, Political Sociology, Comparative Sociology, Nonprofit Organizations, Leadership, Environment, Labor, Mixed Methods

  • Postdoctoral Fellow, Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, Stanford UniversityPh.D., Sociology, University of ChicagoM.A., International Relations, University of Chicago

  • Fall Semester 2025

    Course #SecCourse TitleDaysFromToLocationCampus
    SOC 35501Global SocietyARRWEB-ASYNCHOnline Campus
    SOC 39001Research MethodsARRWEB-ASYNCHOnline Campus
    SOC 42301Social Movements and ChangeARRWEB-ASYNCHOnline Campus

  • Books

    Lin, J.Y. 2023. A Spark in the Smokestacks: Environmental Organizing in Beijing Middle-Class Communities. New York: Columbia University Press. 

    Kallman, M., Clark, T., Wu, C., and Lin, J.Y. 2016. The Third Sector: Community Organizations, NGOs, and Nonprofits. Urbana, Chicago; Springfield: University of Illinois Press.  

    Op-Eds/Writing for the Public

    Horvath, A. and Lin, J.Y. 2022.“Statement for the Record, U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, Hearing on Examining Charitable Giving and Trends in the Nonprofit Sector.” (March 17).

    Horvath, A. and Lin, J.Y. 2020. “How Civic Organizations Are Helping to Fight COVID-19.” Boston Review (with acknowledgement to CSUEB undergraduate student Sujin Rhim).

    Articles in Books and Edited Volumes

    Lin, J.Y. 2015. “Turning Points in an Authoritarian Context: State-Leader Interactions in Environmental Protests in China.” Urban Mobilizations and New Media in Contemporary China. Edited by Hanspeter Kriesi. Ashgate (Invited).

    Lin, J.Y. 2011. “Global Comparisons of the Third Sector and Tools for National Policy-Making.” Pp. 317-323. In On the Development of Community Social Organizations: Experiences from China and Abroad, Chinese Social Sciences Press. 2011 (In Chinese).

    Book Contributions

    “Market-Oriented Reforms of the Welfare State and Union Responses in South Korea and Taiwan.” When Solidarity Works: Labor-Civic Networks and the Politics of Welfare States in Developing Countries. October 2016. Cambridge University Press.

    Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

    Lin, T and Lin, J.Y. (equal authorship) 2017. “Taiwan’s Foreign Aid in Transition: From ODA to Civil Society Approaches.” Japanese Journal of Political Science, v.18(4), 1-22.

    Lin, T and Lin, J.Y. (equal authorship) 2007. “The Environmental Civil Society and the Transformation of State-Society Relations in China: Building a Tri-Level Analytical Framework.” Pacific Focus, v.22, no.2 (September 2007), 113–140.

     Lin, J.Y. 2010. “The New Political Culture and Environmental Protests in China: A Case Study on the Xiamen Chemical Factory Protest”, NGO and Global Governance (Taiwan), v.1, no.1 (January), 137-169.

     Lin, J.Y. 2007. “Ecological Protests and the Emergence of Environmental Movements in China: A Theoretical Analysis”, Journal of NGOs (Taiwan), v.1, no. 2 (March 2007), pp.123-149.

    Book Reviews

    Lin, J.Y. 2019. Review of Contesting Cyberspace in China: Online Expression and Authoritarian Resilience by Rongbin Han. Mobilization 24(1): 119-121

    Lin, J.Y. 2013. Review of Social Protest and Contentious Authoritarianism in China by Xi Chen. Mobilization 17(4): 490-491.