Although China's software industry has grown substantially over the past decade, it could have grown even more had it not been for several obstacles, the most important being rampant violations of the copyrights of software developers. In response to this situation, software companies and associations, domestic and foreign, have lobbied the Chinese government to adopt policies to help the industry. While they have had some lobbying success, in part thanks to both companies and relatively vibrant associations, the industry still faces large hurdles, and a basic dilemma: if it is to fully grow, the industry needs the government to adopt (and implement) more favorable policies, but the government for the moment is likely to be more influenced to adopt policies favored by competing interests that are economically and politically more powerful than the software industry.
Scott Kennedy is an assistant professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Indiana University. He received his Ph.D in political science from George Washington University in 2002. His dissertation, "In the Company of Markets: The Transformation of China's Political Economy", examines the growth in business influence on the policy making process in China. He recently finished editing a book, "China Cross Talk: The American Debate over China Policy since Normalization, A Reader" which is an anthology of op-eds, congressional testimony, speeches and editorial cartoons that present the most memorable scenes from the debate of the past quarter century.
Kennedy has published articles in numerous popular and academic periodicals, including The China Quarterly, Problems of Post-Communism, Asian Wall Street Journal, and the China Business Review. From 1993 to 1997, Kennedy was a research assistant at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. He received his M.A. in international relations from Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in 1992 and his B.A. in foreign affairs from University of Virginia in 1989. He has lived in China off and on for four years since the late 1980s, and has traveled throughout East Asia.
