In 1983, Oi joined the political science faculty at
Lehigh University, and in 1987 she moved to
Harvard University. Summarizing Oi's findings, Edward Friedman wrote that she "concludes that the form of politics during China's imperial era, republican period, Maoist rule, and the present post-Mao reforms remained traditional, that is,
personalistic, based on
clientalistic relations," and that "Oi locates the cause of the traditionalistic continuity not in culture but in structural circumstances". In 1999, Oi was the sole author of a second book:
Rural China Takes Off: Institutional Foundations of Economic Reform. The book studies the actions and incentives of government officials in China at the local and regional levels, as drivers of economic success in rural China since the 1970s. The success of rural industry in China under the state socialist system appeared to present a paradox, and Oi used hundreds of interviews conducted over 10 years to demonstrate how the incentives for local officials shifted in ways that promoted rapid growth in rural areas. Oi also co-authored the 2013 book
Syncretism: The Politics of Economic Restructuring and System Reform in Japan with Kenji E. Kushida and Kay Shimizu. In 2019, a citation analysis by political scientists Hannah June Kim and
Bernard Grofman identified Oi as one of the top 40 most cited women working as a political scientist at an American university. She has been cited in media outlets like
The Washington Post,
The New York Times, and
The Wall Street Journal. ==Publications==