H. Christoph Steinhardt is associate professor at the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Vienna. His research focuses on state society relations in China, studying how the state seeks to mold society, and social forces carve out space for action. He has published on popular protest, social trust, civil society and political identities. Within the ENGINEERING project he is investigating the popular perception of social credit and privacy, state justification strategies and the evolution of the Social Credit System.
He holds an MA (Diplom) in Social Science (Humboldt University, Berlin) and a Ph.D. in Political Science (Chinese University of Hong Kong). Before coming to Vienna, he has been a postdoctoral visiting research fellow at the East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore and assistant professor at the Centre for China Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research has been funded by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council, the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation and the European Research Council.