Dr. Oscar Almén
Visiting Researcher

Oscar Almén received his PhD in 2005 at the Department of Peace and Development Studies, Goteborg University with a dissertation entitled ‘Authoritarianism Constrained: The Role of Local People’s Congresses in China’. He is a researcher at the same department and is currently working in a collaborative research project, involving several Swedish China experts, studying the implementation of law in China. His areas of expertise include Chinese politics, local governance, rule of law, legislatures and international relations. Since spring 2006 he is affiliated to the Silk Road Studies Program.

Oscar Almén studied Chinese in Beijing 1996-1997 and has since 2000 conducted field research on local politics in different areas of China, but mainly in Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces. In 2002 he was a visiting PhD student at School of Politics and International Relations, University of New South Wales, Sydney. During 1998-1999 he was a desk officer at the Asia division of the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

Publications

Authoritarianism Constrained: The Role of Local People’s Congresses in China, PhD Dissertation, Department of Peace and Development Research, Göteborgs Universitet, 2005.

"Local Elections in China", in Politologiske Studier, Vol 6, No 2, September 2003, pp 45-56.

"The Local People’s Congress in China: Supervising the government or the People?", in Buen, Jorund and Björn Kjellgren, (eds.) China at the Turn of the Century: Selected proceedings from the sixth biennial NACS conference, Författarnas bokmaskin, Stockholm, 2002, pp 54-62.

Pekingregimens legitimitetsdilemma (The Beijing regime’s dilemma of legitimacy), in Internationella Studier, no 2, 2001, pp 63-74 (with Jonas Grimheden and Johan Lagerkvist).