EDGS Book Talk: "Bad Lieutenants" with Andrew Mertha

Join the Roberta Buffett Institute and its Equality Development & Globalization Studies (EDGS) program for a public talk with Andrew Mertha, the George and Sadie Hyman Professor of China Studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

Dr. Mertha will present his new book, "Bad Lieutenants: The Khmer Rouge, United Front, and Class Struggle, 1970–1997," which examines how the Khmer Rouge remained a force to be reckoned with even after the fall of Democratic Kampuchea—and of the men behind the movement's strange durability. Mertha argues that the Khmer Rouge's successes and failures were both driven by a refusal to dilute its revolutionary vision. Rather than take the moderate tack required for viable governance, it pivoted between only two political strategies: united front and class struggle. Through the stories of three key leaders—Ieng Sary, Son Sen, and Ta Mok—Mertha tracks the movement's shifting from one strategy to the other until its dissolution in the 1990s.

Please join us at 12:30pm on December 2nd, 2025 in the Buffett Reading Room at 720 University Place, Evanston, IL 60201. Lunch will be provided!

About the author

Andrew Mertha is the George and Sadie Hyman Professor of China Studies, Director of the China Studies Program, and Director of the SAIS China Global Research Center at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). From 2020 to 2021, Mertha served as the Vice Dean for Faculty Affairs and International Research Cooperation at SAIS. He is a former 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 four books (all Cornell University Press), The Politics of Piracy: Intellectual Property in Contemporary China (2005), China’s Water Warriors: Citizen Action and Policy Change (2008), Brothers in Arms: Chinese Aid to the Khmer Rouge, 1975-1979 (2014), and Bad Lieutenants: The Khmer Rouge, United Front, and Class Struggle, 1970-1997 (2025). 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; his own 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 and translated into Khmer in 2024.

He has provided public testimony for the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, briefed the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, and has accompanied a U.S. congressional staff delegation to Beijing, Xinjiang, and Shanghai to discuss issues of terrorism and narcotics trafficking. He has appeared on National Public Radio, the BBC, and Voice of America. Mertha’s comments have appeared in Time, the Washington Post, the International Herald Tribune, the Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times, South China Morning Post, BusinessWeek, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Cambodia Daily.

Mertha is on the Editorial Committee for the Journal of Comparative Politics and previously sat on the editorial committees of The China Quarterly, and Asian Survey. He is vice president of the Center for Khmer Studies (CKS) and a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. He received his PhD from the University of Michigan and is originally from New York City.

Please note that 720 University Place is not an ADA-accessible space. Increasing physical access to buildings and facilities is a goal of the University, but not all buildings and venues have been updated at this time.

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