Yuen Yuen Ang
Award-winning political economist - bridging East-West and shaping new paradigms for a disrupted, multipolar world
Yuen Yuen Ang is the Alfred Chandler Chair Professor of Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University. Her work opens new ways of thinking for a disrupted, multipolar world, while also bridging academia, business, media, and policy. Ang’s cross-disciplinary research has received multiple awards across political science, sociology, and economics. Her work has been described as “game-changing,” “bold and transformative,” “powerful and fascinating” by scholars, leaders, and influential media (see below).
Rejecting the paralysis of polycrisis, Ang launched polytunity as a counter-narrative, reframing disruption as an opening for deep transformation. At the heart of this call is Ang’s distinctive paradigm—AIM (Adaptive, Inclusive, Moral) Political Economy. AIM views political economies as complex adaptive systems (Adaptive), amplifies diverse indigenous solutions (Inclusive), and recognizes the power inequities that shape global institutions and thought (Moral).
AIM is a living intellectual forest with new concepts, theories, and projects that Ang continuously cultivates. Her award-winning books—How China Escaped the Poverty Trap (2016) and China’s Gilded Age (2020)—have long demonstrated applications of AIM in the context of China’s capitalist revolution. Both are recommended by The Economist and featured in an online lecture series produced by INET. Her latest projects expand the canopy of AIM into collaborations ranging from high-tech industrial policies to adaptive policy communication. Today, Ang invites changemakers worldwide to carry AIM forward across regions and sectors.
Beyond academia, Ang brings her ideas into dialogue with practitioners and leaders. At Johns Hopkins, she directs both The Polytunity Project and The Multipolar World & US-China Roundtables. The latter convenes experts across backgrounds in Washington D.C. to explore U.S.-China relations in an age of multipolarity. She also serves as Trustee on a multinational board guarding the Trust Principles of journalistic integrity at Reuters, the world’s largest multimedia news provider.
Named among the world’s 100 Most Influential Academics in Government by Apolitical, she is recognized for “research that has the potential to steer the direction of government.” Her insights are sought by international organizations, civil society, companies, and governments worldwide. She has been profiled across regions by CGTN Visionaries (China), Die Zeit (Germany), Economy Chosun (South Korea), Ezra Klein Show, Freakonomics Radio (USA), South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), among others.
Born and raised in Singapore, Ang received her B.A. from Colorado College and her Ph.D. from Stanford University. Her cross-cultural background grounds her global lens, inspiring her to translate across differences and shape a more creative, inclusive future.
For updates, follow her on LinkedIn or subscribe to her new Substack: Polytunity.
Impact & Resonance
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Margarita Cedeño, former Vice President of the Dominican Republic
“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.”
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Theda Skocpol Scholar Prize (Comparative Politics)
“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.”
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Marc Steinberg, Chair of Viviana Zelizer Book Prize (Sociology)
"How China Escaped the Poverty Trap truly offers game-changing ideas... and should have a major impact across many social sciences."
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Stephen Dubner, Host of Freakonomics Radio
"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.”
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Ezra Klein, The New York Times
"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]."
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Peter Katzenstein Book Prize (Political Economy)
“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.”
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Listeners at Freakonomics Radio
“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?"
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Matt Lord, Senior Editor at Boston Review
"I'm very grateful for the moral and analytical clarity you bring."
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The Economist, Recommends 5 Books on Development
“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.”
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Douglas North Book Prize (Institutional Economics)
“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.”
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Alice Amsden Book Award (Socio-Economics)
“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.”
