Daniel A. Bell

Daniel A. Bell (Chinese name: 贝淡宁; born May 1964, Montreal) is a prolific and controversial political theorist who has been teaching at Tsinghua University in Beijing since 2004. He is now Chair Professor of the Schwarzman Scholars Program at Tsinghua and director of the Berggruen Institute's Philosophy and Culture Center. He has put forward his views in favor of China’s political meritocracy and against one person one vote as a mode of selection for political leaders in two books and in comments published in the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Global Times (环球时报), and in regular columns published in the Huffington Post, in Project Syndicate, in the Guardian, as well as the Chinese language periodical Nanfengchuang (南风窗，English:South Reviews) and a Chinese language blog site on Caijing (‘财经’).
He was educated at McGill University and Oxford University, has taught in Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai, and has held research fellowships at Princeton’s University Center for Human Values and Stanford’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.

Bell is the author of books including:

• The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy, Princeton University Press, 2015. ISBN 9781400865505.
• The Spirit of Cities: Why the Identity of a City Matters in a Global Age [co-authored with Avner de-Shalit], Princeton University Press, 2011. ISBN 9780691151441.
• China’s New Confucianism: Politics and Everyday Life in a Changing Society, Princeton University Press, 2010. ISBN 9781400834822.
• Beyond Liberal Democracy: Political Thinking for an East Asian Context, Princeton University Press, 2006. ISBN 9781400827466.
• East Meets West: Human Rights and Democracy in East Asia, Princeton University Press, 2000. ISBN 9781400823550.
• Towards Liberal Democracy in Pacific Asia [co-authored with David Brown, Kanishka Jayasuriya, and David Martin Jones], Palgrave Macmillan, 1995. ISBN 9780333613993.
• Communitarianism and Its Critics, Oxford University Press, 1993. ISBN 9780198279228.

He is the series editor of a translation series by Princeton University Press that aims to translate the original works of Chinese scholars:

• Joseph Chan’s Confucian Perfectionism: A Political Philosophy for Modern Times, Princeton University Press, 2013. ISBN 9780691158617.
• Jiang Qing’s A Confucian Constitutional Order: How China's Ancient Past Can Shape Its Political Future [co-edited with Ruiping Fan, Translated by Edmund Ryden], Princeton University Press, 2012. ISBN 9780691154602.
• Yan Xuetong’s Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power [co-edited with Sun Zhe, Translated by Edmund Ryden], Princeton University Press, 2011. ISBN 9780691148267.

He is also the editor of Confucian Political Ethics (Princeton University Press) and the co-editor of six books:

• The East Asian Challenge for Democracy: Political Meritocracy in Comparative Perspective [co-edited with Chenyang Li], Cambridge University Press, 2013. ISBN 9781107623774.
• Confucian Political Ethics, Princeton University Press, 2007. ISBN 9781400828661.
• Ethics in Action: The Ethical Challenges of International Human Rights Nongovernmental Organizations [co-edited with Jean-Marc Coicaud], Cambridge University Press, 2006. ISBN 9780521684491.
• The Politics of Affective Relations: East Asia and Beyond (Global Encounters: Studies in Comparative Political Theory series) [co-edited with Hahm Chiahark], Lexington Books, 2004. ISBN 9780739107997.
• Confucianism for the Modern World [co-edited with Hahm Chaibong], Cambridge University Press, 2003.ISBN 9780521527880.
• Forms of Justice: Critical Perspectives on David Miller's Political Philosophy [co-edited with Avner de-Shalit], Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002. ISBN 9780742521797.
• The East Asian Challenge for Human Rights [co-edited with Joanne R. Bauer], Cambridge University Press, 1999. ISBN 9780521645362.