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Abstract:
This lecture focuses on the reshoring of advanced integrated circuit manufacturing to the United States. Utilizing TSMC Arizona as a case study, it analyzes the dynamics of the American multi-level developmental state under the current post-neoliberal transition. Existing literature on the U.S. "hidden developmental state" predominantly focuses on federal-level innovation policies, a dominant narrative that often frames the CHIPS Act as a singular policy victory. Grounded in long-term fieldwork and interviews, this study reveals that the actual work of industrial reshaping is decentralized across federal, state, and local governments, as well as private intermediaries. It argues that local-level developmental coordination is not a newly emergent phenomenon; rather, it represents a long-standing infrastructure that previously operated on a smaller scale under neoliberal conditions. Ultimately, the federal paradigm shift has opened up an opportunity structure for these local development agendas. Through these insights, this research reconstructs a multi-level state framework that has long been obscured by the federal narrative.

Bio:
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. Trained in both law and sociology, Professor Lei holds an LL.M. and a J.S.D. from Yale Law School and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Michigan. Following her doctoral studies, she served as a Junior Fellow at the Society of Fellows at Harvard University (2013–2016).

Professor Lei's research interests span political economy, political sociology, economic sociology, science and technology studies, law and society, and the sociology of media and information technologies. She is the author of two scholarly books published by Princeton University Press: The Contentious Public Sphere: Law, Media, and Authoritarian Rule in China (2018) and The Gilded Cage: Technology, Development, and State Capitalism in China (2023). Her current book project examines the reconfiguration of the global economic order, focusing on semiconductor manufacturing and the relocation of advanced chip production from Taiwan to the United States.

Her articles have appeared in leading social science journals, including the American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Annual Review of Sociology, Law and Society Review, Political Communication, and The China Quarterly, among others. Her scholarship has received numerous awards and honors from 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, and the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation.

Note:
Participation is limited to in-person attendees.