Professional Biography

Reza Hasmath is a Trinidadian-Canadian academic and Full Professor of Political Science at the University of Alberta. He serves as Executive Director of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Civil Society.

He has held faculty positions in management, sociology, and political science at the Universities of Toronto, Melbourne, and Oxford, and was the Fulbright Canada Research Chair in Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California (2025). He has also worked for and advised global think tanks, consultancies, development agencies, and social organizations. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, and was formally trained in philosophy, public policy, international studies and diplomacy, social and political sciences, as well as various East Asian and European languages.

His award-winning research is supported by several multi-year grant schemes and addresses four major themes: (1) ethnic minorities and integration: examining life course experiences, labour market outcomes, and public policy responses in comparative global contexts; (2) authoritarianism, governance and civil society: analyzing state-society relationships, policy experimentation, NGO development, and citizenship construction in China, with implications for understanding authoritarian resilience and adaptation; (3) China’s global re-emergence: assessing China’s role in international development, foreign relations with Western jurisdictions, and the internationalization of Chinese actors in global civil society; and (4) global sustainability and ESG governance: evaluating corporate sustainability practices, reporting standards, philanthropic trends, and evolving environmental and social governance principles.

He is the author and editor of nine books, and his journal articles appear in leading outlets in political science (e.g., Democratization, Governance), sociology (e.g., Current Sociology), Chinese studies (e.g., The China Quarterly, Journal of Contemporary China), ethnic studies (e.g., Ethnic and Racial Studies), labour studies (e.g., International Labour Review), social policy (e.g., Journal of Social Policy), public administration (e.g., Public Administration and Development), philosophy (e.g., Journal of Deliberative Democracy), development studies (e.g., Development Policy Review, European Journal of Development Research), and nonprofit studies (e.g., Voluntas, Journal of Civil Society). Many of his influential publications have been translated into several languages, including Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish. He was the Foundation Editor of the Routledge Research on the Politics and Sociology of China book series (2014-2025). His work has been recognized with major awards including the ARNOVA Global Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership Award (2021) and President’s Award for Non-Profit Research (2015). He has designed and fielded nine major survey research projects, generating original data that have informed academic research and policy analysis globally.

To raise broader awareness about his research findings and their policy implications, he has delivered numerous scholarly talks and policy speeches at leading global academic, government, and think tank institutions. He convenes a global dialogue series on China’s foreign relations, producing policy reports for governments and institutions in the UK, EU, Canada and Australia. He is regularly sought for advice in his cognizant research areas by government agencies, nonprofits, and multinational enterprises. Additionally, he is a regular contributor to national and international media outlets, appearing in over 300 interviews on television (e.g., BBC UK, CCTV China, CTV News Canada, DW Germany, France 24, NBC News USA, SBS Australia), radio (e.g., ABC Radio Australia, BBC Radio UK, CBC Radio Canada), and print (e.g., The Economist, Financial Times UK, Globe and Mail, The Guardian UK, Le Monde, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post).