Event

Professor Su discussed his recent book Deadly Decision in Beijing: Succession Politics, Protest Repression and the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre(Cambridge University Press, 2023). In a play-by-play account of the elite politics that led to the military crackdown, Yang Su addresses the repression of the protest in the context of political leadership succession. Beneath the political drama, Deadly Decision in Beijing explores the authoritarian regime's perpetual crisis of leadership transition and its impact on popular movements. The book received honorable mention of the 2024 Distinguished Scholarly Book Award of the American Sociological Association.

Yang Su is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine and a scholar of social movements, revolution, and political violence. His earlier book Collective Killings in Rural China during the Cultural Revolution was a winner of the 2012 Barrington Moore Book Award in comparative and historical sociology and an honourable mention of the 2012 Charles Tilly Book Award in the studies of collective behavior and social movements.

Open to all, informal lunch provided. This event is held onsite with a Zoom session. Please register below for Zoom access:

https://upenn.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUoc-iqqjkoGN0rZIoH0Q0mDy_ZSZdOJ6gs