TCAS Lecture: Andrew Mertha

Bad Lieutenants: The Khmer Rouge, United Front, and Class Struggle, 1970–1997

Co-hosted by TCAS and the Department of Political Science

Speaker: Andrew Mertha
Date and time: Monday, 17 November 2025, 1pm – 2.30pm
Venue: C6.002 TRiSS Seminar room, Level 6, Arts building

In 1979, the Vietnamese army seized Phnom Penh, toppling Cambodian dictator Pol Pot's notoriously brutal regime. Yet the Khmer Rouge did not disintegrate. Instead, the movement continued to rule over swathes of Cambodia for almost another two decades even as it failed to become a legitimate governing organization. How was this possible given that the Khmer Rouge were responsible for the deaths of a quarter of all Cambodians between 1975 and 1979, by then a matter of historical record?

Andrew Mertha is the George and Sadie Hyman Professor of China Studies, Director of the China Studies Program, and Director of the SAIS China Research Center at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and vice-president of the Center for Khmer Studies. Mertha has served as the Vice Dean for Faculty Affairs and International Research Cooperation at SAIS. He is formerly a professor of Government at Cornell University and an assistant professor of Political Science at Washington University in St. Louis. Mertha received his PhD from the University of Michigan and is originally from New York City.