1. Revolution as the Easy Way Out: Discursive Competition and Elite Behavior before the Xinhai Revolution • Siying Fu, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

2. Inferring the Chinese State's Personnel Strategy from Vacancy Chains, 1978 - 2012 • Shilin Jia, University of Chicago.

3. Between Politics and Expert: Institutional Transposition and the Admission of Economic Bureaucrats into Party Elite in Reform China • Yingyao Wang, University of Virginia.

4. To Follow the Way and Not One’s Lord': Intellectual and State in Axial-Age China • Yuan Xi, University of Virginia.