
My intellectual interests focus on questions about knowledge-making and social change (especially legal change) under authoritarianism, particularly on Mainland China. My current research explores the divergent making of public interest litigation regimes in China, in which I examine the different developmental trajectories between the law-making of environmental public interest litigation (EPIL) and consumer public interest litigation (CPIL) regimes. The analysis shows that the production of different kinds of legal knowledge provide different opportunities for grassroots NGOs; only some are capable of demanding legal outcomes that reflect their goals.
Recent Research / Recent Publications
Xiangyi Ren & Lili Liu (2020) Building Consensus: Support Structure and the Frames of Environmental Legal Mobilization in China, Journal of Contemporary China, 29:121, 109-124, DOI: 10.1080/10670564.2019.1621533