Ning Leng is an assistant professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University. Her research lies at the intersection of comparative politics and political economy, with a regional focus on China. She studies authoritarian institutions, state–business relations, and the political foundations of economic development. Leng’s first book, Politicizing Business: How Firms Are Made to Serve the Party-State in China (Cambridge University Press, 2025), examines how the Chinese state solicits political services from companies, resulting in an unstable investment environment and unintended development outcomes.

Leng is currently conducting fieldwork for her second book project on the successes and failures of Chinese enterprises in South America. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Georgetown Americas Institute, the Georgetown Provost’s Pilot Research Grant, the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation, the Institute for Humane Studies, and several other sources.

Leng received her PhD in political science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2018 and was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation from 2018 to 2019. Prior to her academic career, she worked as a management consultant in Chicago, specializing in strategy and operations.

Leng was an event speaker at the Dialogue.