Yufeng Liu

I am a DPhil student in Politics (Comparative Government) focusing on the political economy of subnational government, examining inter-governmental arrangements and their implications on political and economic outcomes. It also concerns a cross-national comparison of fiscally centralised states, namely the UK, France, and China. I employ quantitative methods of causal inference and game theory, whereas my theoretic framework is intrinsically comparativist and historical institutionalist.

Before Oxford, I obtained my BA in Politics at Sciences Po where I was awarded the merit-based Émile Boutmy scholarship, and then a Master of Public Administration at the London School of Economics (LSE), School of Public Policy, where my paper analysing the Labour's proposed reform on local government finance won the Patrick Dunleavy prize for the best dissertation. At LSE, I conducted my year-long degree project on new industrial policies in partnership with the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. I spent an exchange year at Johns Hopkins University's Department of Political Science in Baltimore, US.

Notwithstanding my specialisation in comparative government, I also have a strong interest in radical and Marxian political theory. My work on the 'national question' debate in the early years of RSDLP(b) appears on the 2026 PSA conference. Outside academia, I am a regular contributing writer to a variety of media mostly in Chinese and sometimes in English. My longest commitments are for the National Humanity History magazine and the 'Thought Marketplace' column of The Paper.