Dimitar Gueorguiev, associate professor of political science, has been named the Yang Ni and Xiaoqing Li Scholar in U.S.-China/Asia Relations for the 2023-24 academic year.

Gueorguiev’s one-year appointment began July 1. He is the third Maxwell faculty member to have been named a scholar from the Yang Ni and Xiaoqing Li Endowment Fund for U.S.-China/Asia Relations. Syracuse University alumni Ni L’95 and Li G’96 established the fund in 2021 to encourage greater connections between Maxwell faculty and scholars in China and Asia. Scholars may utilize funds for travel, research and teaching in China.

Gueorguiev's research focuses on Chinese regime strategies and institutions for harnessing public participation to maintain power through improved governance. More broadly, he studies elections, corruption and foreign investment. He teaches courses on Chinese politics, comparative autocracy, research methods and foreign policy.

Gueorguiev is director of Chinese studies at Syracuse University. Additionally, he is a Public Intellectual Fellow with the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. His book, “Retrofitting Leninism: Participation without Democracy in China” (Oxford University Press, 2021),” explores Chinese policy decisions and the dynamics of democracy without public participation. He is frequently cited in media reports about current U.S. and China relations.

Gueorguiev succeeds Norman Kutcher, professor of history and Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor for Teaching Excellence, who served as the Yang Ni and Xiaoqing Li U.S.-China/Asia Relations Scholar for the 2022-23 academic year. Kutcher’s studies center on late imperial and modern China, with an emphasis on the Qing dynasty.

Yingyi Ma, professor and director of graduate studies of sociology and director of Asian/Asian American studies, was the inaugural scholar, named for the 2021-22 academic year. Ma’s research addresses education and migration in the U.S. and China, focusing specifically on education stratification and mobility strategies for racial minorities, the children of immigrants and their families in the U.S.

Ni and Li earned degrees from the Syracuse University College of Law and the School of Information Studies, respectively. Interviewed shortly after making their gift, they cited their time in Maxwell’s sociology and history departments as impactful to their lives.

“We are fortunate to have met so many wonderful people at Maxwell, our professors, mentors, colleagues at the departments and fellow students,” Ni said. “Maxwell welcomed us with open arms.”

By Sophia Moore