Professor Dali L. Yang is Professor and Director of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore. His research interests are political institutions and political economy, with special reference to China. He has been a professor and was previously Chairman of the Department of Political Science at The University of Chicago. He was also a former director of the University's Committee on International Relations, one of the nations' oldest graduate programs in international affairs.
An engineering graduate from Beijing Science and Technology University, Yang received his Ph.D. in political science from Princeton University, specializing in international relations and comparative politics. He joined the University of Chicago faculty in 1992.
Professor Yang teaches classes on China’s politics and political economy at Chicago. He is a member of professional associations such as the American Political Science Association and the Association for Asian Studies. He is also on the editorial boards of various journals, including Asian Perspective, American Political Science Review, Journal of Contemporary China, and World Politics. At Chicago he is a member of the Center for East Asian Studies. He has been a co-director of the University of Chicago Workshop on East Asia Politics, Economy, and Society.
Professor Yang is the author of many books and scholarly articles on China's political economy and development. Among his books are
Remaking the Chinese Leviathan: Market Transition and the Politics of Governance in China (Stanford University Press, 2004, 2006) ;
Calamity and Reform in China: State, Rural Society and Institutional Change Since the Great Leap Famine (Stanford University Press, 1996, 1998);
Beyond Beijing: Liberalization and the Regions in China (Routledge, 1997).
and, as editor or co-editor,Discontented Miracle (World Scientific, 2007) and Holding China Together: Diversity and National Integration in Post-Deng China (Cambridge University Press, 2004).
Professor Yang has been a consultant to industry, government agencies, and the World Bank. He is currently a member of the advisory board of China Telecom Group, a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, co-chair of the China Roundtable of the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, as well as a member of the China Committee of the Chicago Sister Cities International Program.