Professor Yu Jianrong is head of the Rural Development Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Born in Hengyang, Hunan Province, in 1962, he studied politics and law at Hunan Normal University in the 1980s, and in 2001 received his post-doctorate in legal studies from Huazhong Normal University. Professor Yu’s writings include “Change in Political Structures at the Village Level in Transitional China,” “Rights Defense and the Modern Rural Population: An Investigation of Hengyang, Hunan” and “Class and the Contemporary Chinese Worker.”