Bio
Liu Yu is a PhD candidate in Political Science at Columbia University, expecting her PhD in May 2006. Her major research interests include political economy of transitional states, power and legitimacy, Chinese revolution and institutionalism. She has written several articles on the political economy of transition comparing China and Russia, on political movements in China, and on the myth of Mao’s legitimacy. She writes extensively for journals in China, introducing contemporary American politics to Chinese readers.
Her dissertation “From the Mass Line to the Mao Cult: The Production of Legitimate Dictatorship in Revolutionary China” examines the “mass line” in Mao’s revolution. Her main inquiry is why and how the masses actively participated in political movements that destroyed their own lives.