Fangcheng Yuan

Fangcheng Yuan joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) during the 2011–12 academic year from the Institute of Political Science at Central China Normal University where he serves as an associate professor.

His research interests encompass Sino-foreign local governance; current reforms and innovations in contemporary rural China; and a comparative study of rural governance in Mainland China and Taiwan. During his time at Shorenstein APARC, Yuan will conduct research on community reconstruction: current reforms and innovations in China’s rural primary-level management system. He will contribute to a forthcoming research report on the subject.

Yuan is an editor of the Journal of Socialist Research, and contributes articles regularly to publications including CASS Journal of Political Science and Journal of Public Administration. He is also the author of Making Service Work (2008); Breakthrough: Xian’an Reform and the Transformation of China's Rural Grass-roots Governance (2009); and Working in Grass-Roots: A Close Observation of the Reforming of Rural China (2011).

Yuan holds a PhD and an MA in Chinese and foreign political systems from the Institute of Political Science at Central China Normal University, and a BA in political science from Wuhan University.