Cheng Chen is Associate Professor of Political Science a the State University of New York Albany. She received her PhD in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania in 2003. Her research and teaching interests include post-communist politics, nationalism and nation-building, democratization, Chinese politics, and comparative-historical methodology. She is the author of The Prospects for Liberal Nationalism in Post-Leninist States (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2007). In addition, she has published articles in refereed journals such as Communist and Post-Communist Studies, East European Politics and Societies, Europe-Asia Studies, Post-Soviet Affairs, and Problems of Post-Communism. Currently, she is working on a new book project examining the search for regime ideology in post-communist China and Russia.