Diana Fu is currently working on a book manuscript on state control and civil society contention in contemporary China. She completed her doctorate in politics with distinction from Oxford University where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar (2006–2012). Her dissertation, "Flexible Repression: Engineering Control and Contention in Authoritarian China" explores how the state and civil society experiment with new modes of control and contention inside the world's largest authoritarian regime. The research draws on empirical data from 18 months of close fieldwork inside unofficial labor organizations across China, including underground groups. It identifies variations in patterns of state-civil society interactions and compares the above-ground sector with the underground sector of civil society. Overall, the dissertation contributes to an understanding of the nature of state repression and civil society contention in an adaptive authoritarian regime.

 

Prior to Stanford, Fu was a pre-doctoral fellow in the Department of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was also awarded an MPhil with distinction in international development from Oxford University, as well as a BA (summa cum laude) in political science and global studies from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.  Her public engagement includes contributions to Nick Kristof's On the Ground Blog (The New York Times), PostGlobal, and Global Brief.