Jessica Teets
Professor of Political Science
- Office
- Munroe Hall 305
- Tel
- (802) 443-5528
- jteets@middlebury.edu
- Office Hours
- MONDAY 11:30 - 12:30 & 2:30 - 3:30, WEDNESDAY 8:30 - 9:30 (EMAIL TO MAKE APPT.)
Jessica C. Teets is a Professor at Middlebury College, and Associate Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Chinese Political Science. Her research focuses on governance in authoritarian regimes, especially the role of civic participation. She 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), in addition to articles published in The China Quarterly, World Politics, Governance, and the Journal of Contemporary China. Dr. Teets is currently working on a new book manuscript (with Dr. Xiang Gao) on changing governance under Xi Jinping, and a forthcoming edited volume (with University of Michigan Press) developing a theory of how to lobby dictators (with Dr. Max Grömping).
Courses Taught
DPPG 8502
WaterConflict&Devp in Asia
Course Description
Dam projects have long been associated with uneven development, human insecurity, injustice and even indirect and direct forms of inter-region or inter-state conflicts. Almost all Mekong River countries have made ‘damming Mekong’ a policy priority to achieve economic development and secure clean energy.
China now is the largest investor, trading partner, and aid donor in the region and has invested in major infrastructure projects through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) across the region. China’s extensive dam-building in Southern China, and its development financing in Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam, have given it extensive control of the waters of Mekong River states in Southeast Asia that have long depended on the river for agriculture, fisheries, and increasingly for hydropower and energy supply.
After preparation during the fall 2023 semester, our faculty-student research team will travel to Vietnam and Thailand to compare large foreign-financed dam projects that have been completed or currently under construction.
Through a two week field research experience in Vietnam and Thailand, we will guide students to conduct in-person field work, including semi-structured interviews (and potentially surveys) with government officials, think tank experts, environmental NGOs, hydropower companies, and local citizens in Vietnam and Thailand.
In addition to traditional security threats, we will spend ample time exploring the non-traditional security threats that plague the region, including debt sustainability, access to water and electricity as basic human rights, environmental insecurity, and forced relocation of low-income farmers along the Mekong River.
Students will get to workshop and select the specific research questions inside the following overarching topics of water conflict:
Through extensive field research, students will study selected questions in groups exploring water politics and conflict transformation comparing the two countries, such as how do they secure foreign investment but also balance local environmental and water use concerns to avoid conflict over scarce water resources?
Learning Objectives
To deepen students’ understanding and appreciation of both the policy and development challenges faced by Southeast Asian country policymakers and local citizens, including organized advocates like environmental NGOs and hydropower companies.
(1) development of knowledge and skills on conflict transformation regarding water conflict
(2) Build familiarity with main theoretical and empirical perspectives on development projects and their social, environmental, economic and political implications in a region so culturally, politically and economically diverse and at the same time strategically important to the United States
(3) Apply field research methods and writing skills
(4) Foster communication skills for diverse audiences, including formal presentations and informal discussions in class, semi-structured interviews with foreign experts and government officials and with culturally and religiously diverse local populations
(5) Understanding and appreciation of cultural sources of individual, community, and national identities, cultural values, and culturally-informed perspectives on and approaches to conflict over public policies addressing environmental challenges and development concerns.
Terms Taught
DPPG 8579
How China is Chnging the World
Course Description
How China is Changing the World
The rise of China over the last four decades is one of the most significant events that shape global market competition, trade and economic development, and geopolitics. Its implications on worldly issues from global and regional peace and security to the sustainability of the environment are profound. China’s rise exerts an ever-greater influence on international affairs. The country’s government, military, markets, firms, and ideas are reshaping the world. But there is little agreement across the globe about the nature of this newfound influence. Is China an opportunity? Is China a threat? What does China want? How to meet the challenges of ‘China Shocks’ and ‘the dragon in the room’?
Regardless of how you would answer such questions, all types of policy professionals need to be familiar with China and know how to think about its international profile. This course is an amalgamation of dynamic, complex and interactive forces that appear as problems, puzzles or challenges to different people/countries at different times. This course aims to provide an orientation for students to understand those forces, especially those related to the major stakeholders and their evolving relationships, policies and game rules, and collective behaviors. The orientation is grounded in both Chinese historical and cultural legacies and the contexts of China’s state building, modernization and globalization.
This course provides students with a broad introduction to Contemporary China’s political, economic, and strategic challenges. The discussion begins with the lowest point in Chinese history when the country was rendered as a semi-colony of Western powers and ends with China’s contemporary rise and implications for the world. The questions asked include: In what ways is China rising? How did it happen? How does China’s rise impact the U.S and the global system? The course covers a wide array of topics in primarily three areas: domestic politics, foreign policy challenges and development challenges. More specifically, the topics include Chinese imperial legacies and revolution, contemporary political institutions and policy making processes, the opening of China and its reforms and their resulting challenges, China’s role in global peace and development, its relations with U.S., Russia, the other Asian powers and the other powers of the world powers, and the mainland-Taiwan relation, China’s trade and investment policy before and during the reform era, the Chinese economic regime and policy making process, China’s industrial policy and national standard strategy, and the social, environmental and energy challenges China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has imposed on developing countries.
Throughout the semester, students are also trained on research design including both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Collectively, we will develop research topics and proposals, and drafts of initial methodology (e.g., interview questionnaires, surveys, etc). This would serve as an intensive training on research methodology and the development of research instruments to be implemented during our field research trip in Vietnam and Thailand in January 2024. Students who are not planning to join the trip can also benefit from this field research skills training.
This course is a multidisciplinary study of China’s relationships with the world that synthesizes knowledge from international relations, political science, development and economics to provide students with a holistic understanding of China’s rise and what it means for the world. The aim is to span the divide between scholarship and policymaking by using data, theory, primary sources, and secondary texts from various sides of key China debates.
Terms Taught
IGST 0700
Upcoming
Senior Work
Course Description
Senior Work
(Approval Required)
Terms Taught
IGST 0704
Current
Upcoming
EAS Senior Thesis
Course Description
East Asian Studies Senior Thesis
(Approval Required)
Terms Taught
IPEC 0500
Upcoming
Independent Project
Course Description
Independent Project
(Approval Required)
Terms Taught
IPEC 0700
Current
Upcoming
Intl.Pol.&Economics SR. Thesis
Course Description
Senior Thesis
(Approval Required)
Terms Taught
PSCI 0213
QualitativeMethods in Poli Sci
Course Description
Qualitative Methods in Political Science
This seminar offers a broad introduction to qualitative methodology with a focus on comparative methods for the analysis of a relatively small number of cases (small-n). This course will enable students to create and critique qualitative research designs in political science. The course focuses on recent methodological writings and includes several substantive examples from various subfields. Topics covered include causal inference, case studies, cross-case comparison, typological theory, case selection, process tracing, counterfactual analysis, and set theory. We will also discuss approaches to multi-method research and the use of mixed methods in political science. 3 hrs. lect. (Methods)/
Terms Taught
Requirements
PSCI 0221
Upcoming
Contemporary Chinese Politics
Course Description
Contemporary Chinese Politics
This introductory course provides students with a background in how the party-state political system functions, and then investigates the major political issues in China today. We will focus first on economic reform issues, such as income inequality, the floating population, and changes in the socialist welfare model, and then on political reform issues, such as the liberalization of news media, NGO and civil society activity, protest and social movements, environmental protection, and legal reform. China is a quickly changing country, so students will focus on analyzing current events but also have an opportunity to explore a topic of interest in more detail. 3 hrs. lect./disc. Comparative Politics
Terms Taught
Requirements
PSCI 0286
Authoritarian Politics
Course Description
Authoritarian Politics
The purpose of this course is to examine the characteristics and dynamics of non-democratic regimes. First, we will define autocracy and consider different forms of authoritarianism and how their leaders come into power. Next, we will investigate why some authoritarian regimes are able to sustain their rule while others collapse. Finally, we will explore how citizens of these regimes bolster, comply with, or revolt against their governments. Throughout the course, adopting a comparative standpoint, we will draw on various country cases. (Comparative Politics)/
Terms Taught
Requirements
PSCI 0469
Upcoming
Chinese Political Economy
Course Description
Chinese Political Economy
Over the past 30 years China has undergone a tremendous transition. The purpose of this course is to consider the extent to which China's experience has challenged theories of market reform. First, we will examine the role of the state in Chinese economic development and market systems more broadly. Second, we will analyze challenges in Chinese state-society relations, from public service provision to protest, that have emerged after such rapid economic growth. Finally, we will discuss the political implications of the Chinese state's responses to these issues in terms of authoritarian durability and governance. 3 hrs. sem. (Comparative Politics)/
Terms Taught
Requirements
PSCI 0500
Current
Upcoming
Independent Project
Course Description
Independent Projects
A program of independent work designed to meet the individual needs of advanced students. (Approval required)
Terms Taught
PSCI 0700
Current
Upcoming
Honors Thesis
Course Description
Honors Thesis
(Approval required)
Terms Taught
PSCI 1047
WaterConflict Vietnam&Thailand
Course Description
Water Conflict in Vietnam and Thailand
Students will research water conflict between China, Vietnam, and Thailand through extensive field research in both Vietnam and Thailand. Specifically, students will conduct group interviews exploring water politics and conflict transformation comparing the two countries, such as how do they secure Chinese investment but also balance local environmental and water use concerns to avoid conflict over scarce water resources? How do they strike a balance between their economic dependence on China and security dependence on the US? How have the China-led Lancang Mekong Cooperation group (LMC) and the US-led Mekong River Commission (MRC) competed as multilateral institutions governing water politics in the region? How do they strike a policy balance between meeting energy demand and mitigating negative social and environmental impacts of dam-building? How do they coordinate various interests and impacts between the upstream and downstream states through regional institutions? Studying these important questions will help students learn more about water politics in the region as well as tools and methods of conflict transformation, while also deeply immersing themselves in local politics and culture in each country.
Terms Taught
Requirements
PSCI 1048
Social Change Big Challenges
Course Description
Social Change to Address Systemic Challenges*
In this course we will examine different methods to enact social change around systemic challenges such as climate, poverty, and racism. We will evaluate lobbying, protest, public opinion campaigns, psychology of communication outreach, training seminars, behavioral nudges, etc., to determine when and how these efforts are successful. Through this process we will wrestle with the current debate on how to coordinate and scale individual efforts to realize durable, large-scale change. In addition to the course content, students will advance a social change project (in groups) with instructor mentoring. This effort will be digitally based and supported by skill-building workshops from experts and mentors (instructor's approval needed for registration). (Pass/Fail)
Terms Taught
Requirements
PSCI 1052
Current
Housing Policy Research
Course Description
Policy Innovation Lab: Affordable Housing Regulations
In this policy lab we will work with the Bristol VT Planning Commission to study the impact of current Bristol zoning regulations on affordable housing, and identify best practices in other municipalities for supporting affordable housing. We will begin by studying the politics of affordable housing and the impact of municipal regulation, next we will see how many national trends are also present in Vermont, undergo training in qualitative research methods, and finally undertake a team research project to recommend zoning changes in Bristol, Vermont.
Terms Taught
Requirements
Publications
Hsu, Carolyn L., Jessica C. Teets, Reza Hasmath, Jennifer YJ Hsu, and Timothy Hildebrandt. “The Construction and Performance of Citizenship in Contemporary China.” Journal of Contemporary China 32 (138). 2022: 1-17.
Hasmath, Reza, Timothy Hildebrandt, Jessica C. Teets, Jennifer YJ Hsu, and Carolyn L. Hsu. “Citizens’ Expectations for Crisis Management and the Involvement of Civil Society Organisations in China.” Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 51(2). 2022:292-312.
Lewis, Orion, Jessica C. Teets, and Reza Hasmath. “Exploring Political Personalities: The Micro-Foundation of Local Policy Innovation in China.” Governance 35 (1). 2022: 103-122.
Teets, Jessica C., Reza Hasmath, Timothy Hildebrandt, Carolyn L. Hsu, and Jennifer YJ Hsu. “Volunteerism and Democratic Learning in an Authoritarian State: the Case of China.” Democratization 29 (5). 2022: 879-898.
Teets, Jessica, Michael Gao, Mika Wysocki, and Weiru Ye. “The Promise of “Payment for Ecosystem Services”: An Analysis of Watershed Eco-Compensation Policy Design in China.” Environmental Policy and Governance 31 (6). 2021: 580-591.
Teets, Jessica and Nele Noesselt. “The State of the Field for Governance and Policy Innovation in China.” Journal of Chinese Governance 5 (4). 2020: 413-8. Special issue: Policy Innovation and Governance in China. Guest Editors: Jessica Teets and Nele Noesselt.
Teets, Jessica and Reza Hasmath. “Evolution of Policy Experimentation in China.” Journal of Asian Public Policy 13 (1). Special Issue on Policy Entrepreneurship in Asia. 2020.
Gao, Xiang and Jessica C. Teets. “Civil Society Organizations in China: Navigating the Local Government for More Inclusive Environmental Governance.” China Information 35 (1). 2020.