UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Valerie Li spent her formative years in China and Canada, two countries with vastly different political systems and cultures. The difference between the countries led her to the field of comparative politics and Penn State’s doctoral program, which she entered in 2021.
“I saw the norms and practices in China, and how vastly different Canada was,” Li said. “I started to wonder the many ways citizens can engage in politics, and how they differ across political and social contexts.”
Li is the second recipient of the Eleanor Roosevelt Memorial Fellowship, established by Susan Welch, former dean of the College of the Liberal Arts. Named after one of Welch’s personal heroes, the program began as a summer research scholarship in 2017 and transitioned to a yearlong fellowship after a bequest from Welch following her death in 2022.
As a fellowship recipient, Li will receive tuition support and a stipend, which will allow her more time to focus on research. Her work will also be supported by a McCourtney Institute for Democracy Research in Democracy Support Grant.
Li’s research focuses on how ordinary citizens pursue individual rights, participate in collective actions, and advocate for democracy given the high risks of doing so in autocratic regimes. She explained she initially focused only on China but later expanded to include other countries.
Li said she is drawing from a collection of petition letters written to the government and a survey she’ll conduct with people under other authoritarian contexts, such as in Turkey, India, Russia and Hong Kong. Her adviser is Cyanne Loyale, associate professor of political science and international affairs.
Li's research goal is to understand under what conditions people are more likely to adopt and emulate resistance attitudes and behaviors and whether proximity to protests happening in neighboring countries changes attitudes about protest and civil resistance, she said.
“Studying civil resistance in autocracies is crucial to understanding the process of democratization,” Li said. “It also helps to safeguard democracy in new democracies or democracies threatened by democratic backsliding.”
Previous research in this area has focused on structural forces that impact civil resistance across countries. By utilizing micro-level analysis and survey experiments, Li said she hopes to gain insight into how individuals see their situations and their role in larger societies.
“Studying these questions on a more everyday level of politics is closer to the lived realities of people living under an autocratic regime,” Li said.
The Eleanor Roosevelt Memorial Fellowship is one of many philanthropic endeavors from Welch, who served as dean of the College of the Liberal Arts for nearly three decades. Welch was a distinguished political science scholar and academic leader.
Welch was also a noteworthy philanthropist; during her lifetime, Welch and her husband — the late Alan Booth, former distinguished professor of sociology, human development and demography — contributed or pledged nearly $3 million to Penn State and the college.