Yuen Yuen Ang

“Yuen Yuen Ang proposes a bold and transformative concept called ‘polytunity’… It is an invitation to change the paradigm from which we interpret reality and design the future.”

“Ang’s scholarship evokes the spirit of Theda Skocpol’s contributions to political science. Like Skocpol, her work pushes us to rethink existing theories, concepts, and categories in comparative politics.”

"How China Escaped the Poverty Trap truly offers game-changing ideas... and should have a major impact across many social sciences." 

"One of the most powerful and fascinating pieces we’ve done in some time… If Yuen Yuen Ang really is, as she puts it, intellectually weird — well, she’s my kind of weird.”

"Pioneering work on China’s political system... pretty profound implications. Or at least, it is an interesting way of thinking about how we are governed here [in America]." 

“Ang’s systematic engagement with diverse literatures circumvents disagreement over which came first, democracy or development, to make a field-shifting move to non-linear complex processes.”

“I am perhaps a simple woman, but I recognize quality work and discussion when I see it or hear it.”

“It was so consuming I had to simply stop my car and sit there listening.”

“Probably the thing I appreciate the most is your willingness to step back, look at the paradigms and ask, can we do better?"

"I'm very grateful for the moral and analytical clarity you bring.” - On Ang’s essay Beyond Elite Innovation

“The enduring drag of weak institutions on a country’s development might imply pessimism. Such thoughts can be dispelled by considering the example of China… Ang [How China Escaped the Poverty Trap] attributes China’s remarkable transformation to a ‘co-evolutionary’ process.”

“Ang [China’s Gilded Age] develops provocative new theory to distinguish among different types of corruption… This outstanding book has already made substantial waves in academia and in policy circles.”

“In China’s Gilded Age, Yuen Yuen Ang’s eclectic intellectual and methodological approach also ensures the book’s appeal to a broad interdisciplinary audience.”

“Yuen Yuen Ang has a principle, a very simple principle of ‘use what you have,’ which offers a sharp challenge to the legacy of coloniality in development. It rejects the imposition of external models that fail to fit local realities, urging instead the strengthening of existing institutions, however flawed, through use and adaptation.” - Speech at BMZ-Konferenz in Germany, Coloniality & the Way Forward

“I’m reminded of what Yuen Yuen Ang, a political scientist I deeply admire, says about development: ‘the first step in development is using what you have, not what you want…’ I think the sooner we begin to use what we have–however little–to get what we want, the sooner we can develop sustainably.”