Junius F. Brown is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Economy. He started in-person at DKU in Spring 2025, after teaching remotely for Session 1 of Fall 2024. He teaches POLECON 301 (International Development), POLECON 201 (International Political Economy), POLSCI 307 (Political Economy of Institutions), and CC1/GCHINA 101 (China in the World). He is passionate about teaching and mentoring, and has presented at teaching and learning conferences in Kunshan, Shanghai, and Washington, D.C.
Dr. Brown received his B.A. from a small liberal arts college (Macalester) in 2016, majoring in Political Science and Sociology with a minor in History. He spent two years in Cornell’s Sociology Ph.D. program before transferring to the University of California, Berkeley, where he graduated with a Ph.D. in Political Science in May 2024. From there, he proceeded directly to his current appointment at DKU.
His research, which lies within the subfields of comparative politics and Chinese politics, studies how Chinese citizens and local state agents interact on digital help portals like the Message Board for Leaders, with a recent focus on ethical issues surrounding rule of law, legality, and local government discretion. In his research, he favors a mixed-methods approach, combining statistical analysis and content analysis with conceptual and theoretical work. He has published in Asian Survey and the Routledge Handbook of Chinese Citizenship, and is affiliated with DKU’s Center for the Study of Contemporary China (CSCC).