Ke

Li

I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, part of the City University of New York. My research, broadly speaking, examines the intersection of law and society in contemporary China. In 2022, I published my first book, Marriage Unbound: State Law, Power, and Inequality. Since then, I have expanded my research into new areas.

One project focuses on expert testimony in Chinese courts. In 2012, Chinese lawmakers revised two national laws: the Civil Procedure Law and the Criminal Procedure Law. Among other changes, the amendments allowed litigants and their attorneys to invite specialists—also known as persons with special knowledge—to contest testimony provided by state-authorized expert witnesses. Against this backdrop, I address three sets of questions: First, how do judges assess competing claims about science and technology? How do they approach the task of evaluating scientific evidence? Second, what happens when private parties bring their own specialists to court? Can they mount meaningful challenges to state-approved expert witnesses? Finally, how do the two groups of experts mediate state-society relations within and beyond courtrooms? Ultimately, I demonstrate that Chinese courts are not simply sites of technological modernization; rather, they are institutions that produce and reproduce hierarchies of expertise.

A second project casts light on a policy known as up-or-out, sometimes described as a Chinese version of the tenure system. Since the early 2000s, Chinese universities have been experimenting with this policy, with far-reaching implications for higher education, labor rights, and the relations among the state, market, and knowledge elites. In this context, I pursue two lines of inquiry, one focusing on labor disputes involving faculty members and their employers, and the other analyzing the shifting relations between intellectuals and the state. By combining these inquiries, I strive to further integrate science and technology studies with the law and society tradition.