Fall, 2026

September 11 (Friday), 2026, 11:30AM-12:30PM (PST) / 1:30-2:30PM (CST) / 2:30-3:30PM (EST)

“The Political Economy of Corruption and Anti-Corruption: Evidence from China’s Court Judgments”

Chengyu Fu (Harvard University)

Abstract: How does anti-corruption enforcement reshape both corrupt behavior and the judicial system that processes it? This paper addresses these two related questions using a novel dataset of approximately 100,000 criminal court judgments from China (2001-2023), from which I extract over 380,000 individual corrupt events using large language model-based methods. On corruption transactions, I develop a market framework predicting that anti-corruption campaigns function as supply-side shocks: they reduce the frequency of corrupt exchanges but increase the price (bribe amount) per transaction, with this price effect concentrated in bribery (a two-party market) rather than embezzlement (a single-actor appropriation). On judicial prosecution, I argue that courts in China respond to the political signal of enforcement campaigns by processing cases faster, sentencing more harshly, and granting less leniency, while defendants rationally adapt by confessing and cooperating more. Exploiting quasi-exogenous variation in the staggered deployment of Central Inspection Teams across Chinese provinces, I find strong support for both sets of predictions. Post-inspection, corrupt event frequency declines substantially, but the average bribe amount per event increases significantly. This price effect is specific to bribery; embezzlement amounts are largely unresponsive. On the judicial side, the time from initial sanction to court shortens by 72 days, sentences lengthen by approximately 4 months, probation rates fall by 5 percentage points, fines increase by 25,600 yuan, and defendants are significantly more likely to confess and cooperate. These findings contribute to the comparative political economy of corruption by demonstrating that enforcement campaigns simultaneously transform the structure of corrupt markets and the severity of the judicial apparatus, with implications for how scholars evaluate the effectiveness of anti-corruption policy.

October 16 (Friday), 2026, 11:30AM-12:30PM (PST) / 1:30-2:30PM (CST) / 2:30-3:30PM (EST)

“Turning the Table: How China’s Ambition for Industrial Upgrading Reverses State-Business Power Relations”

Qianmin Hu (Stanford University)

Abstract: This paper argues that China’s pursuit of industrial upgrading has reversed the power dynamics and expropriation patterns between local governments and private firms. As China attempts to climb the global value chain and transform into an innovation-driven economy, it is pivoting toward a new developmental model which I call “State Venture Capitalism.” In this model, local governments act as venture capitalists, investing state assets in high-risk ventures undertaken by private entrepreneurs. Under intense top-down political pressure to implement national industrial policy mandates, local governments’ exceptionally high demand for firms in Strategic Emerging Industries (SEIs) combined with the relative scarcity of qualified firms creates a “seller’s market.” This discrepancy forces the state to cede bargaining power to these firms and tolerate potential expropriation of state assets.

Using mixed methods including ethnography, interviews, and quantitative analysis, this paper documents local governments’ desperate efforts to court desirable firms and their high tolerance for opportunism, under-delivery, and strategic default by their private partners. Drawing on court cases involving government-business investment contracts between 2006 and 2021, I demonstrate that the reversal in expropriation patterns is driven by the “Made in China 2025” policy shock that occurred in 2015. A Difference-in-Differences (DID) analysis reveals a significant increase in firms’ breach of contract against local governments specifically among firms in SEIs post-2015. This shift is explained by a geographic mechanism: the intense demand for SEI firms compels officials to recruit firms from a national market rather than locally. Further analysis confirms that firms recruited from outside the jurisdiction have increased as a proportion of the total number of cases, are more likely to be SEI firms, and have a higher probability of breaching contracts than locally originated firms do. This indicates that the absence of social ties renders local governments more vulnerable to firm expropriation.

Overall, these findings suggest an “innovation dilemma” facing the Chinese state: to realize its ambition of industrial upgrading and transformation, it must paradoxically tolerate high risks of predation by the very private firms it seeks to cultivate.

This research contributes to the literature on several fronts. First, existing work typically assumes the state, especially an authoritarian one, is a dominant predator capable of arbitrary expropriation. This paper challenges this assumption by demonstrating that under certain developmental conditions, an authoritarian regime can become a vulnerable asset-holder, ceding leverage to private business actors to secure their participation. Second, the literature on political connectedness has long emphasized “Access Guanxi,” where firms cultivate ties with politicians to obtain protection and benefits. This study proposes a different type of connectedness which I call “Recruitment Guanxi,” where government officials proactively form personal ties with private actors in order to recruit firms with whom they have no prior connection.

October 30 (Friday), 2026, 11:30AM-12:30PM (PST) / 1:30-2:30PM (CST) / 2:30-3:30PM (EST)

“Assimilation as a Courtesy: Manchu Bureaucrats and Imperial Personnel Strategy in Qing China (1726-1820)”

Cheng Cheng (New York University)

Abstract: How do minority rulers govern majorities? A dilemma arises when small dominant groups must govern through majority-facing institutions while preserving the ethnic boundaries that sustain minority rule. I argue that rulers manage this tradeoff by cultivating partially assimilated co-ethnic elites: officials who acquire majority cultural fluency while remaining embedded in minority institutions. I evaluate this claim using an original panel of roughly 34,000 position-years and 5,200 Qing officials between 1726 and 1820, using the adoption of Chinese courtesy names by Manchu bannermen as a proxy for cultural fluency. Manchu with courtesy names received more important local post in Manchu-specific association that vanishes among Han officials once credentials are controlled. At position transitions, courtesy-name officials accumulate significantly more merit grades conditional on their prior record, suggesting that the personnel system systematically rewarded this dimension. Over the career, these officials rotated more frequently between majority-facing civil posts and boundary-reinforcing banner posts, and were more likely to be recalled from provincial postings back to central court service, consistent with an incentive structure that encouraged partial assimilation while limiting over-assimilation. These findings suggest that assimilation can function not only as a strategy of subordinate groups, as has been shown in the literature, but also as a technology of rule for dominant minorities. My project develops partial assimilation as a framework for understanding how minority regimes preserve ethnic closure while staffing majority-facing institutions.

November 6 (Friday), 2026, 11:30AM-12:30PM (PST) / 1:30-2:30PM (CST) / 2:30-3:30PM (EST)

“Command and Loyalty: Political Choices of Military Elites in Civil War”

Linchuan Zhang (Emory University)

Abstract: The military is vital to the survival of authoritarian regimes, but variations in officers’ loyalty pose a fundamental challenge to dictators. I develop a framework that analyzes how dictators strategic position appointments shape officers subsequent allegiance. I theorize that officers occupying key command positions are more likely to remain loyal because of the benefits tied to their roles. Furthermore, the effect of position depends on factional affiliation: insiders whose loyalty comes from personal connections to the ruler are less influenced by appointments, while officers who are outsiders to the inner circle are more motivated to remain loyal when appointed to important positions. Empowering outsiders with important positions, however, can be a double-edged sword: once disloyal, they are more likely to defect than desert, causing greater harm to the regime. Empirically, I analyze Kuomintang (KMT) military elites during the second phase of the Chinese Civil War (1946-1950) using an original dataset of over 800 KMT generals, and find evidence consistent with the theory. This study highlights the importance of position appointments in shaping military loyalty and emphasizes the heterogeneity of individual officers’ decision-making, contributing to research on authoritarian politics, civil-military relations, and conflict processes.

November 13 (Friday), 2026, 11:30AM-12:30PM (PST) / 1:30-2:30PM (CST) / 2:30-3:30PM (EST)

“Bureaucratization as a Bumpy Journey: The Rise and Fall of Imperial Chinese State”

Shuyi Yu (University of Chicago)

Abstract: Historians have long documented the rise and fall of the Imperial Chinese state. This paper introduces bureaucratization as a potential mechanism underlying these dynamics. It develops a game-theoretical model to analyze the inherent principal-agent problem in state administration, identifying two types of agents available to the ruler: elites and bureaucrats. The process of bureaucratization, driven by exogenous forces such as technological advancements, has enabled the state to monitor an increasing portion of administrative tasks and delegate them to bureaucrats rather than elites. Relational contracts with bureaucrats offer higher returns than those with elites because bureaucrats can be more effectively monitored. Interestingly, as bureaucrats gradually took on administrative duties, state capacity followed an N-shaped trajectory. The mid-phase decline in state capacity is attributed to the weakening credibility of the ruler’s contract with the elites and their reduced efforts. This decline aligns with the significant downturn experienced by the Chinese state during the late Imperial period, followed by a resurgence in modern times as bureaucratization eventually reaches its full form. Furthermore, this model may have broader applicability to other civilizations.

December 4 (Friday), 2026, 11:30AM-12:30PM (PST) / 1:30-2:30PM (CST) / 2:30-3:30PM (EST)

“Digital Panopticon, Built on Cheap Surveillance”

Alison Sile Chen-Zhao (University of California, San Diego)

Abstract: Autocrats have long relied on imprisonment and surveillance to suppress disaffected citizens. However, pervasive incarceration disrupts production and weakens the state, while traditional surveillance is labor-intensive and generates more records than bureaucrats can process. Digital surveillance, powered by AI and large-scale infrastructure, offers an alternative: it allows citizens to stay productive while enabling the regime to preempt opposition. Through formalizing state-citizen interactions under surveillance, this paper shows how digital surveillance reshapes authoritarian social control. The technology affects citizens unevenly. People who pose moderate threats to the regime are most likely to be surveilled. As the technology grows cheaper, surveillance expands to lower-threat citizens; as it grows more accurate, it expands to higher-threat ones. A further finding runs against common intuition: cheap, instead of advanced, surveillance is the key to authoritarian durability, because its constant use deepens self-censorship across the population. An ongoing data collection effort, drawing on large language models to organize hard-to-process Chinese sources, provides empirical traction on the theoretical arguments.