Jessica C. Teets is an Associate Professor in the Political Science Department at Middlebury College, and Associate Editor of the Journal of Chinese Political Science. Her research focuses on governance and policy experimentation in authoritarian regimes, especially the role of civil society. Teets is the author of Civil Society Under Authoritarianism: The China Model (Cambridge University Press, 2014) and editor (with William Hurst) of Local Governance Innovation in China: Experimentation, Diffusion, and Defiance (Routledge Contemporary China Series, 2014), and she has published articles in The China Quarterly, World Politics, and the Journal of Contemporary China. Teets is a fellow with the Public Intellectuals Program created by the National Committee on United States-China Relations, and is currently researching policy innovation by local governments in China.