Andrew Mertha is the Vice Dean for Faculty Affairs and International Research Cooperation, George and Sadie Hyman Professor of China Studies, and Director of the China Studies Program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He is formerly a professor of Government at Cornell University and an assistant professor of Political Science at Washington University in St. Louis.
Mertha specializes in Chinese bureaucratic politics, political institutions, and the domestic and foreign policy process. More recently, he has extended his research interests to include Cambodia. Mertha has written three books, The Politics of Piracy: Intellectual Property in Contemporary China (Cornell University Press, 2005), China’s Water Warriors: Citizen Action and Policy Change (Cornell University Press, 2008), and Brothers in Arms: Chinese Aid to the Khmer Rouge, 1975-1979 (Cornell University Press, 2014). He has articles appearing in The China Quarterly, Comparative Politics, International Organization, Issues & Studies, CrossCurrents, and Orbis. He has also contributed chapters to several edited volumes, including Engaging the Law in China: State, Society and Possibilities for Justice (edited by Neil Diamant, Stanley Lubman, and Kevin O’Brien, Stanford University Press, 2005); China’s Foreign Trade Policy: the New Constituencies (edited by Ka Zeng, Routledge, 2007); and State and Society in 21st Century China, 2nd Edition (edited by Peter Gries and Stanley Rosen, Routledge, 2010). His edited volume, May Ebihara’s Svay: A Cambodian Village, with an Introduction by Judy Ledgerwood (Cornell University Press/Cornell Southeast Asia Program Press) was published in 2018.