Xu Yong

Xu Yong (born 1955) is a senior professor of humanities and social sciences at Central China Normal University and dean of its School of Political Science. He was among the first group of Changjiang Scholars in the humanities appointed by the Ministry of Education. His long-standing research focuses on Chinese politics and rural governance, and he has advocated and helped build "field political science," which emphasizes grasping the grassroots logic of rural China through firsthand investigation. His representative works, including Chinese Rural Villager Self-Governance and The State in Relations, have had wide scholarly influence. In recent years he has led the ongoing large-scale Chinese Rural Survey series, with multiple village-level volumes from volumes 51 to 62, accumulating rich primary materials for rural studies. Other works, such as Nationalization, Peasantry and Rural Integration and A Study of Civil-Military Relations and the "Warlord" Discourse in Modern China (revised edition), span history and politics and reflect a theoretical concern grounded in field experience.