Timothy Hildebrandt is Associate Professor of Social Policy and Development. His teaching, at both undergraduate and post-graduate levels, focuses on social policy and development, non-governmental organisations, and sexuality.

Trained as a political scientist, Tim’s current research program aims to better understand how social policies affect marginalised populations (such as LGBT people) and how social actors (such as NGOs) seek to rectify inequalities in policy processes and outcomes. Although internationally-recognised as a China expert, his recent research has been more comparative in nature, examining Southeast Asia, Subsaharan Africa, the UK, and the US. His research program is methodologically diverse, theoretically grounded, and empirically driven, motivated by and responsive to real world policy problems; he employs both qualitative and quantitative analysis in research that engages theories and debates in social and public policy, political science, communication, development, sexuality, and Asian studies. 

Tim's work has been published in a wide variety of journals including: Democratization, BMJ Open, Journal of Civil Society, Journal of Homosexuality, Development and Change, Development Policy Review, Foreign Policy Analysis, Journal of Contemporary China, Review of International Studies, and The China Quarterly. His book, Social Organizations and the Authoritarian State in China was published by Cambridge University Press in 2013 (paperback in 2015). His work is widely covered in the news media around the world with interviews, op-eds and commentaries appearing in The Guardian, BBC, CNN, South China Morning Post, Chicago Tribune, and Christian Science Monitor. He frequenty serves as an expert witness in asylum cases in the US & UK. Tim is on the Executive Committee of The China Quarterly editorial board, a member of the governing council of the LSE-Fudan Research Centre for Global Public Policy, and on the editorial board of Global Public Policy and Governance.

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Timothy supervises doctoral studies in areas including:
LGBT; NGOs; activism; civil society; politics of China.