Yuen Yuen Ang, a former postdoctoral student of China Program Director Jean Oi, has been awarded the Theda Skocpol Prize by the American Political Science Association in recognition of her “impactful empirical, theoretical and/or methodological contributions to the study of comparative politics.” The prize recognizes emerging academics up to ten years post-PhD for scholarly excellence in political science. Ang is a Stanford Ph.D. alumna and current associate professor of political science at the University of Michigan.

Her research examines how governments and governing organizations react to radical uncertainty and novel problems. She posits that such disruptions are an endemic condition of the twenty-first century, and that examining the political economies of adapting, or failing to adapt, to rapidly changing realities is a key to understanding current geopolitics.

At the center of Ang’s work is the study of China’s rise as a global superpower, which she characterizes as one of the greatest disruptions of the contemporary world. In her highly acclaimed and award-winning book, How China Escaped the Poverty Trap (2016), Ang challenges the conventional linear models of the political economy of development by applying the principles of complexity and system thinking to offer a new explanation of how China transformed itself from an impoverished planned economy into the world’s second-largest GDP.

Ang’s current work into debunking the myths surrounding the U.S.-China tech race, the misunderstanding of nuances of the Belt and Road Initiative, and the debates swirling around China’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to build on her record of excellent and innovative scholarship.

A big congratulations to Yuen Yuen for her latest recognition and ongoing contributions to the field of contemporary Asis studies!

The European Union has passed a stimulus plan of more than $850 billion dollars to bring its economy back on track after the coronavirus pandemic ushered in staggering unemployment rates.

The plan highlights unprecedented actions to bring financial stability to those within the EU that have been most affected.

For more, KCBS Radio was joined by Christophe Crombez, Political Economist and Senior Research Scholar at Stanford University.

APARC is pleased to share that Stanford alumnae Shiran Victoria Shen and Lizhi Liu have won prestigious awards for best dissertation in their fields. Both Shen and Liu earned their doctoral degrees in Political Science in 2018 and worked with Jean Oi, director of the China Program at APARC, during their tenure as doctoral students.

Shen, who is currently an assistant professor at the University of Virginia, has won the 2020 Harold D. Lasswell Award for her dissertation The Political Pollution Cycle: An Inconvenient Truth and How To Break It. The award is given annually by the American Political Science Association for “the best doctoral dissertation in the field of public policy.” Using a wide array of data, techniques, and research designs, Shen’s work explains how environmental change influences and is shaped by politics and policy. It centers on the critical case of air pollution control policies and uses China as a natural experiment.

Liu, whose doctoral research focuses on the political economy of e-commerce in China, has won the 2020 Ronald H. Coase Best Dissertation Award from the Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics. Her study proposes that China has devised a novel solution, that is, institutional outsourcing, to the central question of how developing states build market-supporting institutions. She is currently an assistant professor in the McDonough School of Business and a faculty affiliate of the Department of Government at Georgetown University.

Congratulations, Shiran and Lizhi, on your excellent work and prestigious awards!

In a webinar dated June 8, 2020, American University in Cairo Scholar Amr Adly presented findings from his new book Cleft Capitalism: The Social Origins of Failed Market Making in Egypt (Stanford University Press, 2020). Egypt has undergone significant economic liberalization under the auspices of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, USAID, and the European Commission. Yet after more than four decades of economic reform, the Egyptian economy still fails to meet popular expectations for inclusive growth, better standards of living, and high-quality employment. While many analysts point to cronyism and corruption, this study finds the root causes of this stagnation in the underlying social and political conditions of economic development. It offers a new explanation for why market-based development can fail to meet expectations: small businesses in Egypt are not growing into medium and larger businesses. The practical outcome of this missing middle syndrome is the continuous erosion of the economic and social privileges once enjoyed by the middle classes and unionized labor, without creating enough winners from market making. This in turn set the stage for alienation, discontent, and, finally, revolt. With this book, Adly uncovers both an institutional explanation for Egypt's failed market making, and sheds light on the key factors of arrested economic development across the Global South.