- Prof. Dr. Anna Lisa Ahlers, Associate Professor in Modern Chinese Society and Politics at the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages (IKOS), University of Oslo, Norway. Anna studied Chinese Studies and Political Science (M.A.) at the University of Tübingen, Peking University and Renmin University (PR China). From 2007-2008 she was Greater China assistant in a strategy consultancy bureau in Frankfurt before returning to Tübingen in 2008 to take part in a research project on “Local County and Township Cadres as a Strategic Group in the Transformation of Rural China” (led by Thomas Heberer and Gunter Schubert). At the same time, she also held a position as junior lecturer at the Chair of Greater China Studies at Tübingen University. In spring 2013 she completed her Ph.D in Modern Chinese Studies. From March-October 2013 she worked with Rudolf Stichweh at the Department for Comparative Research on Democracies at the Forum Internationale Wissenschaft, University of Bonn. Afterwards, Anna was deputy director of the research group “Chinese Politics and International Affairs” at the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin, before moving to Oslo in May 2014. Her current research focuses on the dynamics of local governance in China, in particular, on forms and effects of administrative reform and processes of policy implementation (e.g. of China’s new “PM2.5 policy”), and on types of political inclusion in non-democracies within world society. As an associate member of the research network “Governance in China” she takes part in the project “Local Cadres as Strategic Groups”.
- Gang Shuge (Associate Professor) Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, Institute of Sociology
- Dirk Schmidt, Dr. rer. pol, is a senior lecturer for comparative political economy at the Chair of Government and Political Economy at Trier University and has been a member of the research team since March 2010. His current research interests include the political economy of China and Chinese foreign trade policy.