December 5 (Friday), 2025, 10-11AM (PST) / 12-1PM (CST) / 1-2PM (EST)
“State-Endorsed Moral Outrage: Crowdsourced Coercion in the Era of Social Media”
Yingjie Fan (Princeton) and Xu Xu (Princeton)
Abstract: Social media is often seen as a bottom-up revolutionary force, yet this paper shows how such bottom-up mobilization can be harnessed for political and social control. We argue that moral outrage—public condemnation of perceived moral violations—is highly contagious on social media because expressing outrage boosts engagement across vast digital networks. Such outrage can be endorsed by governments to suppress dissent and enforce state-sanctioned moral norms. Between 2012 and 2024, roughly 16,000 online outrage events occurred in China, one-third with state endorsement. Using a survey experiment with 1,351 Chinese internet users, we uncover the moral mechanisms driving outrage contagion and the amplifying role of state endorsement. Crucially, engagement seekers, rather than moral guardians, are most susceptible to spreading outrage. Analyses of large-scale Sina Weibo data from two nationalist attacks show similar results. Our findings reveal how digital media facilitates authoritarian control through moral discourse and crowdsourced enforcement.
Discussants: Rongbin Han (University of Georgia) and Zachary Steinert-Threlkeld (UCLA)
November 21 (Friday), 2025, 10-11AM (PST) / 12-1PM (CST) / 1-2PM (EST)
“Decentralized Economic Statecraft”
Alicia Chen (Stanford)
Abstract: Economic statecraft requires countries to trade-off security and economic gains. I provide a framework to explain how China manages this dilemma by studying the allocation of Chinese foreign aid. I document how, unlike Western donors, Chinese aid is allocated by local politicians rather than central policymakers in Beijing, and that these politicians are subject to a competitive promotion system centered around generating economic growth and fiscal revenue. Under this incentive scheme, local politicians use foreign aid to meet economic targets at home for career advancement. I test my theory using provincial- and contractor-level aid data and a regression discontinuity design that exploits age restrictions in China s promotion system. The results show that promotion-eligible politicians commit nearly $20 million more in aid annually compared to their ineligible counterparts.
Discussants: Sara Newland (Smith College) and Lauren Prather (UCSD)
November 7 (Friday), 2025, 10-11AM (PST) / 12-1PM (CST) / 1-2PM (EST)
“Threats, Reassurance, and Conflict De-escalation: Cross-National Experimental Evidence”
Renard Sexton (Emory), Jessica Chen Weiss (Johns Hopkins SIAS), and Weifang Xu (Emory)
Abstract: How can states most effectively deter potential adversaries? One strand of scholarship emphasizes the role of credible threats and resolve, while others contend that threats often fail and instead provoke. A second element of deterrence is assurance, where actors signal restraint and emphasize that compliance will avoid punishment. We test these claims through cross-national survey experiments of threats and reassurances regarding the Taiwan Strait in four contexts: China, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore. We find that U.S. threats tend to push both Chinese and Taiwanese respondents to support more aggressive policies, whereas reassurance reduces Chinese respondents’ support for aggression. Second, we find that receivers sometimes interpret U.S. signals in different ways, something we call a receiver–receiver gap. For example, Singaporeans expect a U.S. threat to provoke China, whereas Taiwanese and South Koreans do not. In contrast, all receivers agree that a U.S. threat is expected to push Taiwan towards a more aggressive stance. Our results provide important evidence that costly signals are not universally interpreted as intended.
Discussants: Ji Yeon (Jean) HONG (Univ. of Michigan) and Ashley Leeds (Rice)
October 17 (Friday), 2025, 10-11AM (PST) / 12-1PM (CST) / 1-2PM (EST)
“Rethinking Collective Action: Cohesive Networks of Public Complaints in Authoritarian China”
Valerie Li (Penn State)
Abstract: What explains state repression of civil resistance with low-level participation? This paper argues that cohesion in contentious behaviors agreement on demand goals or framing strategies predicts state repression. Cohesive actions can emerge through collective efforts, imitation of others, or repeated behaviors by a single actor. Even without a large crowd, cohesive demands pose a threat to the state by disseminating a coherent political message about shared societal grievances. Using text data on online public complaints from China (N=135,147), I employ a text reuse detection method to identify cohesive networks of public complaints. Spatial analysis results demonstrate that engaging in cohesive actions reduces the likelihood of state concessions for a persistent single actor, but increases the likelihood of concession for group actors. This paper advances the study of contentious politics by moving beyond collective action participation and revealing the prevalence and consequences of cohesive contentious behaviors in autocracies.
Discussants: Lisa Mueller (Macalester College) and Diana Fu (University of Toronto)
October 10 (Friday), 2025, 10-11AM (PST) / 12-1PM (CST) / 1-2PM (EST)
“Justice as Political Control: Field Experiment on China’s Legal Aid Hotlines”
Gary (Ziwen) Zu (University of California, San Diego)
Abstract: How do authoritarian regimes provide public services while limiting political risks? This paper develops a theory of selective responsiveness in which autocratic officials allocate effort across two distinct channels: substantive responsiveness, which delivers concrete solutions, and symbolic responsiveness, which conveys courtesy and empathy without material relief. I test this theory in China’s nationwide 12348 legal-aid hotline through a preregistered audit experiment covering 3,200 randomized calls to 302 cities. Caller identities, issues, and incentive frames were experimentally varied. The results show systematic discrimination: regime-aligned callers receive greater substantive guidance, while disadvantaged and dissent associated callers are managed with symbolic gestures but denied substantive aid. Incentives reallocate effort in predictable ways: commendation appeals raise both forms of responsiveness, whereas complaint threats reduce substantive help and redirect officials toward symbolic deference. Professional autonomy narrows these gaps, while political control widens them. The study advances theories of authoritarian governance by distinguishing multiple forms of responsiveness and demonstrating how symbolic gestures can substitute for substantive aid to contain grievances.
Discussants: Tara Slough (NYU) and Rory Truex (Princeton)
September 26 (Friday), 2025, 10-11AM (PST) / 12-1PM (CST) / 1-2PM (EST)
“Political Control in the Workplace: How Autocrats Use Firms to Discipline Citizens”
Ye Zhang (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Abstract: How do authoritarian regimes maintain control as their private sectors grow? While existing research emphasizes control mechanisms outside the private sector such as security forces and surveillance, less is known about how the regime extends control from within it. This study examines China’s use of Communist Party cells to penetrate firms and shape employee behavior. An original panel of 1,208 publicly listed private enterprises (2012-2022) shows that while party cells have expanded rapidly, they exert little influence on firm behavior. Yet employee-level evidence tells a different story. Even weak and ritualized party cells increase the visibility of the party and heighten employees’ sense of being monitored. Survey experiments show that merely priming the presence of a party cell suppresses dissent and increases perceived risks in workplace discussions. These findings highlight a subtle strategy by one-party regimes to reconcile market growth with political control: targeting individuals, not business, and ruling through presence, not punishment.
Discussants: Tim Frye (Columbia) and Ning Leng (Georgetown)
April 18 (Friday), 2025, 1-2PM (EST) / 12-1 PM (CST) / 10-11AM (PST)
“Institutionalized Autocracies: Social Structure and
Political Dynamics in the Long Run”
Clair Yang (University of Washington)
Abstract: Why do some societies succeed in breaking away from historical traditions while others remain trapped? This paper proposes a formal model to investigate the long-run dynamics of historical authoritarian regimes, highlighting a co-evolution of political institutions and social structures. A society is assumed to comprise three key groups—the ruler, the elites, and the commoners. Different coalitions among these groups determine not only the regime types but also redistribution policies. In the long run, these policies shape the accumulation of wealth and power, where small initial differences can lead to divergent paths of development. Finally, the paper examines three historical case studies on feudal Europe, imperial China, and the medieval Muslim world to illustrate potential pathways of long-run political development.
Discussants: Sean Gailmard (UC Berkeley) and Victor Shih (UCSD)
April 11 (Friday), 2025, 1-2PM (EST) / 12-1 PM (CST) / 10-11AM (PST)
“How Citizens Respond to Infoganda: Evidence from Shanghai COVID Lockdown in 2022”
Hongshen Zhu (Lingnan University)
Abstract: Government-authored media content that blends propaganda with information has seen substantial growth over the past decade. How do citizens react differently to these types of content? The lack of variation in treatment status and the small number of observations—owing to the ubiquity and monopoly of authoritarian propaganda apparatus—make citizen-state interactions difficult to identify in observational data. Using daily street-level data during Shanghai’s spring 2022 COVID lockdown, we collected 90,000 street-level government WeChat posts and over 5,000 citizen petitions to precisely match propaganda senders with their attentive receivers. Advances in large language models allow us to discern information delivery from propaganda messages and classify the latter by the main actors in the content: the central state, local state, or ordinary citizens. Our results show that citizens can discern information from propaganda and pay much more attention to the former during a crisis. Among propaganda pieces, citizens focused more on those covering local government performances rather than central state ideologies or narratives highlighting ordinary citizen heroism.
Discussants: Ji Yeon (Jean) Hong (Univ. of Michigan) and Yusaku Horiuchi (Dartmouth)
March 7 (Friday), 2025, 1-2PM (EST) / 12-1 PM (CST) / 10-11AM (PST)
“Partnership as Assurance: Regulatory Risk and State‒Business Equity Ties in China”
Shengqiao Lin (Harvard University)
Abstract: Recent studies highlight the resurgence of state capitalism, with the state increasingly acting as equity investors in private firms. Why do state‒business equity ties, including partial and indirect state ownership in private firms, proliferate in weakly institutionalized contexts like China? While conventional wisdom emphasizes state-driven explanations based on static evidence, I argue that regulatory risk reshapes business preferences, prompting firms to seek state investors and expanding state‒business equity ties. These ties facilitate information exchange and signal political endorsement under regulatory scrutiny. Focusing on China’s crackdown on the Internet and IT sectors, difference-in-differences analyses of all investments from 2016 to 2022 reveal a rise in state‒business equity ties post-crackdown. In-depth interviews with investors along with quantitative analysis, demonstrate that shifts in business preferences drive this change. This study shows the resurgence of state capitalism is driven not only by the state but also by businesses in response to regulatory risks.
Discussants: Jean Oi (Stanford University) and David Szakonyi (George Washington University)
February 21 (Friday), 2025, 1-2PM (EST) / 12-1 PM (CST) / 10-11AM (PST)
“Escaping the Manipulation Trap: Countering Local Data Manipulation by Disclosure”
Handi Li (University College London), Shengqiao Lin (Harvard University), and Minh Trinh (Purdue University)
Abstract: In authoritarian regimes, local agents tasked with collecting information for autocrats have both the incentive and capacity to tamper with this information. The internal misinformation problem that results can undermine authoritarian governance. While conventional wisdom suggests that authoritarian leaders rely on punishment to discipline subordinates who misreport information, we argue that public disclosure of such malfeasance, even when unaccompanied by punishment, can be effective in tackling data manipulation. Noting that China recently adopted this strategy to combat local GDP manipulation, we show that it was effective in reducing manipulation at different levels of government. We also show that publicly acknowledging internal information problems can improve confidence in the authority, as evidenced by increased business activities in localities involved in public disclosures.
Discussants: Jeremy Wallace (Johns Hopkins University) and James Hollyer (University of Minnesota)
February 7 (Friday), 2025, 1-2PM (EST) / 12-1 PM (CST) / 10-11AM (PST)
“Wait for the Right Time? Leader’s Type, Tenure, and International Cooperation”
Chen Wang (University of Idaho)
Abstract: Are hawkish or dovish leaders more likely to be approached by foreign adversaries for rapprochement? The “hawk’s advantage” argument suggests that hawks are better positioned domestically to pursue cooperation with rivals, encouraging adversaries to approach them. However, evidence that shows doves can more successfully extract concessions complicates this view. This paper argues that the hawk’s advantage exists but is strongest early in a leader’s tenure when information about the leader’s competence is limited. Over time, even doves can cultivate a reputation for competence, allowing them to justify conciliatory actions toward adversaries. Consequently, foreign adversaries, who may inherently trust doves more, will delay engagement with doves, allowing them more time to accumulate the political capital necessary for reciprocation. This argument is tested using both observational data and a survey experiment on US-China rapprochement. Observational evidence strongly supports the idea that doves are only more likely to be approached for cooperation later in their tenure. However, experimental results indicate that American voters overwhelmingly support reciprocating China’s cooperative gesture, and tend to punish hawks more harshly for non-reciprocation due to concerns about damaging the U.S. reputation for trustworthiness. This dynamic is also not significantly altered by the perceived experience associated with longer-serving leaders. Taken together, the findings underscore the challenges in fostering cooperation between rival states. Excessive caution rooted in misperceptions of public opposition in adversarial state can lead to missed opportunities for cooperation.
Discussants: Tyler Jost (Brown) and Jessica Weeks (Wisconsin–Madison)
January 31 (Friday), 2025, 1-2PM (EST) / 12-1 PM (CST) / 10-11AM (PST)
“How Perceptions of Democratic Backsliding Shape Preferences for Cooperation with China”
Ning Leng (Georgetown University), David Bulman (Johns Hopkins University) and Kerry Ratigan (Amherst College)
Abstract: Does a world experiencing democratic backsliding pose less of a threat to an authoritarian global power such as China? We answer this question using survey experiments in a large-scale, population-representative survey in ten middle-income democracies in South America, Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. First, using original targeted questions, we identify the relationship between an individual’s perception of democratic quality in their home country and their favorability towards and preference for cooperation with China. Subsequently, we also explore the mechanism driving this relationship. Using randomized informational text treatments, we test the following hypothesis: information on global democratic backsliding increases public anxiety of the quality of democracy in one’s home country; such anxiety changes how the public view China both in terms of favorability and cooperation preferences. We focus on ten democracies in the Global South to capture populations that are substantively significant and understudied, and that have substantial political and economic ties with China.
Discussants: Scott Kastner (Maryland) and Dan Mattingly (Yale)
December 6 (Friday), 2024, 1-2PM (EST) / 12-1 PM (CST) / 10-11AM (PST)
Fair-Weather Hawks and Doves: Rethinking Issue Salience in Territorial Conflicts
Clara H. Suong (Virginia Tech), Scott Desposato (UCSD), and Erik Gartzke (UCSD)
Abstract: Existing studies on the public’s territorial hawkishness has generally overlooked the individual level variation in the salience of territorial issues in international disputes and focused on object-level attributes as a determinant of territorial salience. We fill this gap with a new measure on individuals’ territorial salience that is based on the political behavior literature on issue salience and disaggregates their territorial hawkishness into general hawkishness and territorial salience. We find that territorial issues are indeed salient to some individuals—29.13% of our respondents—who find territorial issues important enough to switch from being a dove to a hawk or vice versa. However, we also find that most supporters of a territorial war—those who are territorially hawkish—are general hawks, not fair-weather hawks—who support it because of the salience of territorial issues. Among the 60.1% of all respondents who support the use of force in a territorial war, most—69.36% of territorial war supporters—are general hawks and only 30.64% are fair-weather hawks. We also find that the relationship between individuals’ territorial salience and territorial hawkishness varies by their exposure to external territorial events and level of nationalism. Our findings have important implications for existing scholarship on issue salience, territorial disputes, and individuals’ hawkishness.
Discussants: Dimitar Gueorguiev (Syracuse University) and Mike Goldfien (Naval War College)
November 22 (Friday), 2024, 1-2PM (EST) / 12-1 PM (CST) / 10-11AM (PST)
The Growth and Influence of Party Organizations in Chinese Internet Firms
Geoffrey Hoffman (UCSD)
Abstract: As Chinese firms have rapidly expanded into foreign markets, democracies have become increasingly concerned about potential security and influence risks these firms pose. However, it is unclear how much the Chinese government constrains the free behavior of firms. One indicator of government influence in firms is the presence of Chinese Communist Party organizations, but there is little empirical evidence about their impact. A second indicator is state ownership, and although China’s private firms vis-à-vis state-owned enterprises (SOEs) hypothetically ferry less government influence, the difference is challenging to quantify, especially given the growth of party organizations. Does the presence of party organizations modify firm behavior? I use a text as data approach on a corpus of every publicly listed Chinese firm financial disclosure spanning 2001–2023 to show that party organization intensity affects international engagement. I find that, first, party organizations are greatly increasing their activity within firms over time, especially within SOEs. Second, firms are increasingly using party organizations as talent pools for leadership positions, especially SOEs. Finally, private firms with a higher level of party organization intensity are engaging more with foreign countries, especially BRI states.
Discussants: Holger Kern (Florida State) and Meg Rithmire (Harvard)
November 8 (Friday), 2024, 1-2PM (EST) / 12-1 PM (CST) / 10-11AM (PST)
Perception, Misperception, and Crisis De-escalation: Experimental Evidence from U.S.-China Relations
Matthew Conklin (University of Chicago) and Eddy Yeung (Emory University)
Abstract: How do perceptions and misperceptions about the power and resolve of a peer competitor influence public bellicosity in a crisis scenario? A longstanding intellectual tradition in international relations scholarship identifies elite misperceptions about an adversary’s capabilities and intentions as a source of crisis escalation. We shift the theoretical and empirical focus onto the public, investigating how mass perceptions and misperceptions about the adversary shape public support for crisis de-escalation. Exploiting an ongoing U.S.-China dispute over Chinese unification of Taiwan as an experimental setting, we assess whether citizens of both countries adopt a more conciliatory position in the Taiwan Strait crisis when presented with factual information that cuts against their preexisting understanding of the other side’s economic power, military capability, or public hawkishness. Notably, we find causal evidence that exposure to factual information that contextualized China’s military capability or public hawkishness as lower than conventionally understood reduced Americans’ preferences for military escalation around Taiwan. But crisis de-escalation is a bilateral effort, and we are therefore in the process of fielding our parallel survey experiment among the public in mainland China. Our study contributes to the study of misperceptions and crisis escalation, great power transition dynamics, and factual information and public opinion on foreign policy.
Discussants: Sheena Chestnut Greitens (UT-Austin) and Erik Gartzke (UCSD)
November 1 (Friday), 2024, 1-2PM (EST) / 12-1 PM (CST) / 10-11AM (PST)
To Lobby or to Donate? How Chinese Firms Responded to A Public Health Emergency
Youngjoon Lee (University of Maryland)
Abstract: How do firms respond to a public health emergency when the state is unable to act promptly? I argue that in times of health crisis, firms (i.e., both politically connected and non-connected) stop lobbying officials and choose to donate to society. Data on China’s listed firms (2009–22) supports this argument. I also show that when they donate, firms whose charters enshrine the leadership of the Communist Party get subsidies and access to foreign portfolio investment. Yet, non-connected firms tend to receive no resources even when they donate a lot to society. In three ways, this paper contributes to the literature on lobbying and cronyism. It shows that firms shape their relations with the state through their interactions with citizens, that nonconnected firms try to overcome their lack of connections, and that there still exists a gap between connected firms and non-connected firms regarding their ability to get state resources.
Discussants: Dali Yang (Chicago) and Hye Young You (Princeton)
October 25 (Friday), 2024, 1-2PM (EST) / 12-1 PM (CST) / 10-11AM (PST)
Embedded State-Building: How Economic Openness Increased Fiscal Capacity in Contemporary China
Yajie Wang (Yale University)
Abstract: Economic openness is typically associated with the loss of tax revenue in developing economies. In contrast, this paper illustrates that China’s thirty years of economic openness led to growth in fiscal capacity, characterized by the centralization of taxing rights of corporate taxation and the expansion of tax bureaucracy. Theoretically, we contend that this aligns with the compensatory explanation for public sector expansion: the relative decline of the privileged state sector necessitates compensation funded by raising taxes from the rising private sector. Empirically, we collected original and rich data on the universe of bureaucratic recruits, firm registration, local government spending, and industry-level FDI. With Bartik export and FDI shock measures resulting from China’s WTO entry, we show that economic openness leads to the expansion of the nonstate sector, centralized tax bureaucracy, government budget, and central-local transfer scheme to compensate laid-off state workers, strengthening the state’s control over new subnational tax sources and a transitioning society.
Discussants: Wei Cui (University of British Columbia) and Ryan Brutger (UC-Berkeley)
October 4 (Friday), 2024, 1-2PM (EST) / 12-1 PM (CST) / 10-11AM (PST)
Patchwork Capitalism: State, Market, and Regional Economies in China
Qin Huang (Northwestern University)
Abstract: Comparative political economy frameworks, such as Varieties of Capitalism, developmental state, and economic transition theories, have typically focused on national economies without fully dissecting their subnational components. In contrast, this study introduces “patchwork capitalism” as a new perspective to analyzing the national economies of geographically uneven countries through their subnational variations. Using China as a case study, it demonstrates how systematically scaling down to categorize regional economies enables a more holistic scaling up to understand China’s political economy and economic transition at the national level. By combining machine-learning clustering with ethnographic analysis, the study develops a new typology of China’s regional economies: dual-market, quasi-liberal, state-retreating, and state-dominating, each defined by distinct state-market relations. Patchwork capitalism underscores the interconnections and complementarities among these regional economies, offering new insights into the China’s integration into global capitalism. The article contends that China’s economic transition is a regionally gradual process yielding varied outcomes, characterized by a patchworked market economy underpinned by significant socialist legacies.
Discussants: Ling Chen (Johns Hopkins University) and Eddy Malesky (Duke University)
Apr. 19 (Friday), 2024, 1-2PM (EST) / 12-1 PM (CST) / 10-11AM (PST)
“Alliances with Chinese Characteristics? The Rationale of China’s Strategic Partnerships
Ketian Zhang (George Mason University)
Abstract: Alliances are an important component of international relations. However, China rarely forms formal alliances, with the exception of North Korea. Instead, China forms partnerships of various kinds with other states. In light of China’s growing presence around the world and the development of its relations with Russia, how does China view alliances and their utility? Why does China prefer partnerships over alliances? This paper seeks to utilize primary Chinese-language sources, creates a new dataset of Chinese strategic partnerships from 1990 to 2023, and argues that Chinese strategic partnerships are not alliances. China establishes these partnerships because forming alliances are not feasible and unnecessary under U.S. hegemony and because partnerships offer greater flexibility without entrapping China in military obligations. The paper contributes to the alliance literature by examining China’s views and thoughts on alliances and partnerships. It also has policy relevance for whether these strategic partnerships pose a real threat to the United States.
Discussants: Josh Kertzer (Harvard University) and Xiaoyu Pu (University of Nevada)
Apr. 5 (Friday), 2024, 1-2PM (EST) / 12-1 PM (CST) / 10-11AM (PST)
“Risk, Inequality, and Public Support for Social Insurance Integration in China”
Xian Huang (Rutgers University)
Abstract: This study examines individuals’ preferences for social insurance reform under a regionally fragmented and socially stratified social insurance system. Drawing on original individual-level survey data in China between 2022 and 2023, it finds that high financial risks in public pensions significantly increase respondents’ support for inter-regional integration of social insurance. Evidence also shows that the support peaks when the risk and inequality are cross-cutting. The findings suggest that the Chinese government’s distributive tactic of prioritizing inter-regional social insurance integration over inter-class integration dovetails with the popular support for the former under the financial pressure in the fragmented and stratified social insurance system. This study illuminates why and how the Chinese government can engage in “hard redistribution” without causing significant political and social instability driven by distributive conflicts..
Discussants: Mark Frazier (New School) and Philipp Rehm (Johns Hopkins)
Feb. 23 (Friday), 2024, 1-2PM (EST) / 12-1 PM (CST) / 10-11AM (PST)
“Living Through and Researching the Covid-19 Pandemic”
Dali Yang (University of Chicago)
Abstract: Dali Yang is the author of Wuhan: How the COVID-19 Outbreak in China Spiraled out of Control (Oxford, 2024). Having lived in Beijing during the 2003 SARS crisis and carried out research on SARS and other public health issues, he pivoted to researching the Covid-19 pandemic from a social science perspective. In this seminar, Yang previews key aspects of his book and also reflects on the experiences of researching the pandemic while living through it.
Discussants: Jessica Teets (Middlebury College) and Catherine Worsnop (University of Maryland-College Park)
Feb. 9 (Friday), 2024, 1-2PM (EST) / 12-1 PM (CST) / 10-11AM (PST)
“State-Building or State-Weakening? The Consequences of Military Control in Medieval China“
Erik H. Wang (New York University)
Abstract: A key challenge to state-building in conflict-prone societies is the proliferation of autonomous armed groups. As governments seek to enhance monopoly of violence, the consequences of centralization deserve scholarly attention. We argue that as centralization weakens the upper elites in these groups, it improves government control. But such efforts could also undermine efficiency and the discipline of the lower ranks, thereby eroding coercive state capacity. Empirically, we leverage a centralization reform in China’s Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) after a civil war, using unique data on military rebellions, soldier mutinies, battle outcomes, and civilian uprisings. Difference-in-differences estimates reveal that centralization successfully reduced local generals’ rebellions against the regime, but led to increased lower-rank mutinies within the military and more civilian uprisings. It also worsened battlefield performance. While research on state capacity has focused on its extractive and administrative dimensions, these findings deepen our understanding about another important aspect: the coercive dimension.
Discussants: Jack Paine (Emory) and Peng Peng (Yale)
Jan. 26 (Friday), 2024, 1-2PM (EST) / 12-1 PM (CST) / 10-11AM (PST)
“Manipulated Date and Motivated Vote: How Changing Election Dates Shapes Turnout”
Jia Li (Utah State University)
Abstract: Autocracies exploit elections as a tool of political control, but we lack theory and evidence for understanding how manipulated election schedules shape citizens’ political participation. Conventional wisdom suggests that electoral manipulation demobilizes voters. This paper, however, argues that manipulated election dates mobilize voters because this manipulation signals regime weakness. Citizens anticipate the next election will be more tightly contested and therefore become more likely to turn out. Evidence from an original survey experiment in Hong Kong demonstrates that election postponement motivates both opposition and government supporters to vote. However, framing election postponement as a signal of government weakness increases opposition turnout, while framing postponement as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic or a regime strategy to deter opposition mobilization increases the turnout of government supporters. Finally, the evidence indicates that election postponement has second order effects that shape voter turnout by boosting citizens’ beliefs that other citizens will be more likely to vote and protest when the election date shifts. The findings suggest that ordinary citizens learn about regime strength from the information revealed by manipulated election schedules, with implications for election turnout and authoritarian stability.
Discussants: Quintin Beazer (Florida State University) and Haifeng Huang (The Ohio State University)
Dec. 1 (Friday), 2023, 1-2PM (EST) / 12-1 PM (CST) / 10-11AM (PST)
“Revolutionary Legacies and Redistribution: Guerrilla Warfare, Revolutionary Agents, and Land Reform in Communist China”
Kevin Wei Luo (University of Minnesota)
Abstract: How do a regime’s own organizational legacies during revolution shape its capability to push for large-scale social reforms? This paper utilizes the case of Chinese Communist Party’s revolutionary mobilization in Southeastern China to examine how organizational linkages cultivated prior to 1949 facilitated the enforcement of the National Land Reform Campaign (1950-53), one of the largest redistribution of property in history. Using an original county-level dataset of land redistribution efforts, pre-regime founding guerrilla activities, and other measurements of local party characteristics, I find that only counties with stronger organizational ties to central party command during the guerrilla war years demonstrated more effective redistributive outcomes during land reform. The causal mechanism, as I further evidence through party archival sources, can be attributed to the ease of recruiting more reliable state agents under centralized revolutionary command when the CCP returned to power in the region. In contrast with the previous scholarship on revolutionary and state building legacies, I argue how the success of revolutionary state building is often dependent on the organizational structure of mobilization groups themselves, rather than the broader social reception towards revolutionary movements.
Discussants: Junyan Jiang (Columbia) and Megan Stewart (University of Michigan)
Nov. 17 (Friday), 2023, 1-2PM (EST) / 12-1 PM (CST) / 10-11AM (PST)
“The Double-edged Effects of Government Responsiveness on Authoritarian Stability”
Tongtong Zhang (American University)
Abstract: Despite lacking electoral incentives, authoritarian rulers provide numerous participation channels that are designed to respond to citizen grievances. Previous research contends that by mimicking responsiveness in democracies, these participatory institutions will increase regime support and also increase citizen engagement with the government. Yet, in this paper, I show that government responses of varying quality have divergent effects on citizen expressed sentiment and political participation over time. By following a nationwide sample of petitioners over a six-month period—three months before and three months after they submit an appeal to government-run petition accounts (xinfang) on Weibo, I find that receiving a substantive response—those that resolve the appealed problem—motivates citizens to speak more positively of the regime but does not motivate them to increase engagement with government institutions. Receiving a symbolic response—those that are rhetorical without solving the problem—motivates more positive expressions towards the regime, while getting no response increases negative speech against the regime. More importantly, receiving no response or only a symbolic response motivates petitioners to seek more coordination with other societal actors (e.g., private entrepreneurs, foreign media) for collective petitioning and in relative, decrease their engagement with government institutions.
Discussants: Martin Dimitrov (Tulane) and Gemma Dipoppa (Brown)
Nov. 3 (Friday), 2023, 1-2PM (EST) / 12-1 PM (CST) / 10-11AM (PST)
“The Social Cost of Bureaucratic Oversight: Evidence from the Great Chinese Famine”
Ning He (New York University)
Abstract: Existing literature shows that political oversight of bureaucracy can improve government responsiveness to citizens. Yet in cases where state policies mainly concern extracting resources from society, increasing oversight may result in social loss. I test this argument by studying the social impact of bureaucratic oversight in the case of the Great Chinese Famine, a state-directed tragedy that killed over 30 million people. Using panel data covering over 2,000 counties, I find that weather shocks, which increased central-local information asymmetry about local grain production levels, allowed local officials to relax the execution of excessive grain extraction orders from the central government. Despite production decline, weather shocks led to higher grain retention and food availability in rural communities due to bureaucratic discretion. Consequently, I find a large decrease in famine mortality in the situation of weather shocks. This effect was more pronounced when the county party secretary shared more social similarities with the residents. The findings highlight the perils of bureaucratic accountability in autocracies.
Discussants: Juan (Jingyuan) Qian (University of Chicago) and Jared Rubin (Chapman University)
Oct. 13 (Friday), 2023, 1-2PM (EST) / 12-1 PM (CST) / 10-11AM (PST)
“Authoritarian Judicial Balancing: Distributional Conflict, Labor Law, and the Value of Dependent Courts”
Hsu Yumin Wang (Emory University)
Abstract: How do autocrats stay in power when threats from elites and the masses escalate and collide? Focusing on the context of progressive labor law reforms, this study advances a novel theory that elucidates how autocrats take advantage of limited independent courts to balance the intensified elite-mass conflict. When autocrats have greater control over the judiciary, they can exploit the courts to rule in favor of either capital or labor, depending on which side poses a greater threat to the regime. To test this theory, I assemble and geo-reference comprehensive court rulings data on labor disputes, which are then used in a difference-in-differences analysis that exploits subnational variation in levels of judicial independence in China. The results indicate that more dependent courts are more sensitive than their less dependent counterparts to the pressures exerted by both business influence and labor threats, and adapt their adjudication of labor disputes accordingly. Utilizing quantitative cross-country evidence, I further establish that, consistent with the theory’s broader implication, autocrats are more likely to adopt pro-worker reforms in response to bottom-up demands when they can leverage judicial balancing. This study contributes to our understanding of authoritarian institutions and survival strategies amid distributive tensions.
Discussants: Yujeong Yang (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) and Paul Schuler (University of Arizona)
Sep. 29 (Friday), 2023, 1-2PM (EST) / 12-1 PM (CST) / 10-11AM (PST)
“Selling Ideology: How China Engages Cultural Elites to Popularize Propaganda Films”
Linan Lily Yao (Columbia University)
Abstract: Why is authoritarian propaganda often boring, and how can states create captivating content that competes in the modern information landscape? I theorize that dictators must balance controlling the creative process of cultural elites to promote an exact ideology and unleashing their creative potential. Excessive ideological constraints stifle creativity, requiring strong incentives for captivating propaganda. I focus on the resurgence of propaganda films in Chinese cinemas during the mid- to late-2010s, particularly in the aftermath of the 2018 administrative reform where the Central Propaganda Department assumed control of the film industry, as the empirical case. I argue that the Chinese government has successfully enlisted the expertise of private-sector culture to craft entertaining propaganda, making it marketable and popular. It does so through creating heightened direct pressure for filmmakers to cooperate with authorities as well as increased indirect incentives, leading individuals to prioritize state-sponsored projects over others as better opportunities for profit-seeking in an increasingly risky market. I use novel film industry data and qualitative fieldwork to uncover a state propaganda strategy that effectively molds popular culture and sways public opinion in China.
Discussants: Xiaoxiao Shen (Yale) and Jane Esberg (University of Pennsylvania)
Sep. 15 (Friday), 2023, 1-2PM (EST) / 12-1 PM (CST) / 10-11AM (PST)
“Industrial Policy and Investment Networks in the US-China Trade War”
Samantha Vortherms (UC, Irvine), Jiakun Jack Zhang (University of Kansas), and Rigao Liu (University of Kansas)
Abstract: As the business environment sours in China, why do some foreign investors decide to exit while others choose to stay? While international factors such as international agreements buffer firms from increased political risks in a trade war, how does the local political-economic context affect firms’ decisions to exit? Vortherms and Zhang (2021) show that the US-China trade war broadly elevated political risks for multinational corporations (MNCs) operating in China, increasing firm exit overall but not necessarily in sectors facing higher tariffs. In this paper, we investigate the impact of the domestic political economy on MNC exits after the outbreak of the trade war. Specifically, we test two concurrent hypotheses: local industrial policies and investment agglomeration. We argue that local officials use protective policies to undercut the costs introduced by the trade war to maintain existing foreign contracts decreases the costs of weathering the costs of the trade war. Simultaneously, networked agglomeration of foreign capital, where foreign firms are integrated in a local market of foreign capital, increases the costs of exiting. Firms both located in districts with preferential policies, such as economic development zones, and integrated with locally networked foreign capital will be the least likely to exit. We add to existing studies of comparative political economy of foreign investment by adding highly detailed political geography variables to understand the spatial variation in firm exits during the unprecedented trade war between the US and China.
Discussants: Eddy Malesky (Duke) and Kyle Jaros (Notre Dame)
April 21 (Friday), 2023, 12-1 PM CST
“Playing Catch-up: How Authoritarian Courts Handle Transnational IP Litigation”
Lizhi Liu (Georgetown) and Jian Xu (National University of Singapore)
Abstract: Abstract: Intellectual property rights (IPRs) have become a key concern for multinational corporations investing in weak-rule-of-law countries. However, we still have a limited understanding of whether these countries are incentivized to protect foreign investors’ IPRs and, if so, under what conditions. We argue that, even in countries without a strong rule of law or judicial independence, a limited degree of IPR protection can emerge as a result of the country’s innovation strategy. To play innovation catch-up, an authoritarian country needs to balance two competing incentives. On the one hand, it has the incentive to protect foreign IPRs to enable technology transfer and knowledge spillover to indigenous firms. On the other hand, it also has the incentive to limit such protection so that foreign incumbent firms cannot use IP as an entry barrier against indigenous firms. We test the argument by studying China, an authoritarian state with rising transnational IP disputes. Our newly constructed dataset covers the universe of 704,451 IP litigations published between 2016 and 2019 (a total of 825,397 across all years), of which 17,535 are transnational litigations that involve foreign firms. We find that the court rulings reflect the regime’s competing incentives in foreign IPR protection. Contrary to popular belief, the overall win rates of foreign firms are not significantly lower than those of indigenous firms. However, potential adjudicative biases against foreign firms also exist, especially when the judiciary is incentivized to implement national industrial and IP policies. Protection enjoyed by foreign firms is contingent on their economic resources, local firms’ competitiveness, and the strategic importance of the IP in question.
Discussants: Rachel Wellhausen (University of Texas at Austin) and Quan Li (Texas A&M University)
April 7 (Friday), 2023, 12-1 PM CST
“Rule by Market: The Chinese State in Factor Markets”
Meg Rithmire (Harvard)
Abstract: Political economy on China and beyond generally has been premised on a trade-off between state and market power. In the context of China’s reforms, markets and market mechanisms were hypothesized to replace state power in allocating important economic resources. Yet, even as market mechanisms have been introduced in important realms, the state appears to retain power over supply and demand, and, by extension, prices. This paper examines the introduction, and eventual adjustment and constraint, of markets in two important arenas: land and equity markets. Through process tracing and by analyzing a large body of policy documents from various levels of government in both arenas, I uncover a cycle by which the Chinese state embraced market mechanisms to address problems of misallocation, met uncomfortable outcomes of instability and “bubble” behavior during partial liberalization, and reconfigured state control over supply and demand of land and capital while retaining market mechanisms to facilitate competition but not set prices. In both arenas, the Chinese state “rules by market,” by which market mechanisms facilitate, rather than replace, state control over allocation of resources. Rule by market is characterized by authoritarian responses (including populist crackdowns and the use of the state’s coercive apparatus) to respond to market instability as well as institutional reconfigurations involving “red lines” to structure exchange, the setting of indirect price controls, and the rise of novel institutions to enforce these. Rule by market helps make sense of a number of empirical puzzles in China’s political economy, such as bubbles that never seem to pop and cycles of liberalization and crackdown, and suggests amendments to several ideas about how the CCP has managed markets with monopolized political power.
Discussants: Roselyn Hsueh (Temple University) and Ben Ross Schneider (MIT)
March 3 (Friday), 2023, 12-1 PM CST
“When Fire Alarm Needs Police Patrol: Evidence from Regulating Firm-Level Pollutant Emissions in China“
Shiran Victoria Shen (Stanford University)
Abstract: McCubbins and Schwartz (1984) popularized the notion that the fire alarm is more effective on balance and frequently used than the police patrol as a form of oversight. Ensuing scholarship sees the two approaches as highly distinctive and often assumes that the use of one often excludes the other and that there would be tradeoffs when the two are used together. We theorize that even when thoroughly and widely applied, the fire alarm can be ineffective when special interests capture the regulatory bureaucracy. In such a case, the police patrol is needed to break the capture and improve regulatory enforcement and compliance. Central environmental inspection of local firms in China provides an appropriate testing ground for our theory. Using an original and fine-grained firm-level dataset, incorporating confidential statistics used by political and bureaucratic entities in decision-making, we find that higher-contributing firms, which contributed more to local revenues and thus were more favored by the local government and bureaucracy, committed more violations of environmental standards but received relatively fewer penalties than lower-contributing firms. The worse performance of the higher-contributing firms happened even when their emissions were being monitored (i.e., under active fire alarm). However, during central inspections (i.e., police patrol), higher-contributing firms did not commit more violations and were punished no less than lower-contributing firms. We posit that the threat local firms and officials faced of getting caught and punished by the central environmental authority deterred the higher-contributing firms from committing excess violations and lessened the regulatory capture of the environmental bureaucracy. This suggests that higher-level police patrol work synergistically with the fire alarm to improve enforcement and compliance when collusion suppresses the fire alarm.
Discussants: Denise Van Der Kamp (University of Oxford) and Michaël Aklin (University of Pittsburgh)
February 17 (Friday), 2023, 12-1 PM CST
“When Propaganda Resonates”
Xiaoxiao Shen (Princeton)
Abstract: The existing literature on propaganda in authoritarian systems is largely focused on top-down propaganda strategies, such as whether propaganda persuades or intimidates, and how effective different sources of propaganda and types of propaganda content are. This research instead examines propaganda from the bottom-up perspective, looking into how the unique traits of those who are exposed to propaganda influence its effectiveness. Primarily this literature examines demographics like education levels, family backgrounds, political awareness, and whether the individual lives in an urban or rural area. However, this paper proposes a novel bottom-up perspective by analyzing the power of people’s deep-seeded psychological yearnings to impact propaganda effectiveness. It strives to answer the question of how propaganda works by resonating with the psychological needs that people who are exposed to the propaganda have. Various methods were used, including two series of online survey experiments, interviews, a virtual lab-in-the-field mobile app (which was developed by this research scholar) experiment, and text analysis derived from state news media. Using China as a case study example, the three studies conducted in this paper found that as each person has their own different psychological needs, propaganda works the best when the psychological need it is designed to appeal to matches the psychological need an individual strongly feels. Going deeper, propaganda news aimed at appealing to ego-defensive needs (i.e. the psychological need to maintain self-esteem) is particularly effective for the Chinese population, in general. But it is unlikely – at least in the short term – to change individuals’ psychological needs enough to alter their information-seeking behaviors and pro-regime attitudes.
Discussants: Jane Esberg (University of Pennsylvania) and Yiqing Xu (Stanford University)
February 3 (Friday), 2023, 12-1 PM CST
“The Colonial Origin of Population Resettlement: Evidence from Manchuria”
Harunobu Saijo (Duke), Crystal Xu (CUHK), Anna Zhang (WUSTL)
Abstract: Why do post-colonial states engage in population resettlement in their frontier territories? In this paper, we shift away from the motivations for resettlement by advancing a cost-centric theory for resettlement. We contend that states may use the resettlement policy because they inherit the infrastructural capital to do so from settlers sent by former colonial powers seeking to consolidate their frontiers. We test the observable implications of the theory using a unique geo-coded archival dataset and in the context of Manchuria, a northeastern border region of China. We find that Manchurian areas that once received more Japanese settlers during the colonial period are associated with greater proximity to Chinese settlers in the post-colonial era. We also show that, contrary to most findings about the pro-growth institutions associated with colonial settlements, Japanese settlements led to slower economic development in the long run. By focusing on the costs rather than motivations of resettlement, our paper expands our understanding of the rationale for state-sponsored resettlement policies and uncovers an alternative relationship between colonial settlement and economic development.
Discussants: Melissa Lee (University of Pennsylvania) and Daniel Mattingly (Yale University)
2022, Fall
Dec. 9, 2022 (Friday), 12-1 PM (CST)
“Overseas Investment as Soft Power? Chinese and US FDI in Africa”
John F. McCauley (University of Maryland), Margaret Pearson (University of Maryland), and Xiaonan Wang (CUNY Baruch)
Abstract: Scholars increasingly interpret overseas investment as a form of economic soft power, swaying local public opinion to favor the investing firm’s home country. Conceptualizing soft power as a function of both influence and affinity, this study examines how citizens react when firms from major foreign powers – and from their prominent rival – invest locally. Using a unique dataset of over 750 geolocated Chinese and US FDI projects in 23 countries in Africa and connecting those projects to survey responses from over 37,000 citizens, we demonstrate that citizens assign greater influence to major powers whose firms invest locally and reduce the influence they extend to the major power’s rival. Importantly, however, the influence that countries derive from their firms’ overseas investments in Africa cannot be likened to greater affinity: proximity to Chinese and US foreign direct investment (FDI) projects decreases rather than increases citizens’ preferences for the respective country’s development approach, even as it increases their perceived influence. The findings suggest that investing powers are viewed more as heavy-handed bosses than supportive partners, and that FDI thus may not provide a straightforward path to soft power.
Discussants: Nate Jensen (University of Texas at Austin) and Boliang Zhu (Penn State University)
Nov. 18, 2022 (Friday), 12-1 PM (CST)
“If You Have a Problem, Call the Police? Police Action and Inaction in China”
John Wagner Givens (Kennesaw State University) and Suzzane Scoggins (Clark University)
Abstract: Understanding how people interact with the police in an authoritarian state is difficult. In China, research has revealed much about the experiences of protestors, but we know little about how average people talk about everyday encounters with police officers and other frontline enforcement agents. Using a dataset of anonymous posts scraped from a legal advice site that contains 246,000 questions about security personnel, this study provides new insight into a wide range of interactions between the police and society. Because the posts are relatively uncensored, they reveal data about police corruption, violence, and misconduct as well as more mundane matters such as police indifference and assistance. The unique reach of the posts allows us to probe geographical and economic development differences in experiences with the police and compare them across time as police reforms were enacted and key police brutality scandals made public. By capturing ground-level descriptions of regular people, the results offer an unprecedented view into police action and inaction in China.
Discussants: Lauren McCarthy (University of Massachusetts Amherst) and Kevin O’Brien (University of California at Berkeley)
Nov. 4, 2022 (Friday), 12-1 PM (CST)
“Listen to the Party: Understanding Emotional Propaganda in Authoritarian China with An Audio-As-Data Approach”
Haohan Chen (The University of Hong Kong), Yiqiang Wang (HKU), Tony Zirui Yang (WUSTL)
Abstract: Existing studies on authoritarian propaganda focus on cognitive propaganda, authoritarian states’ information manipulation aiming to alter citizens’ rational political choices in favor of the regime. However, few studies have systematically examined authoritarian rulers’ strategies in emotional propaganda: political cues aiming to alter citizens’ irrational part of political attitudes — emotions. In this paper, we describe and explain the prevalence of emotional propaganda in authoritarian China using a novel audio-as-data approach. We collect original audio-visual recordings from Xinwen Lianbo, a flagship news program on China Central Television (CCTV). We construct audio-based measures of emotional arousal, vocal pitch, from the state-sponsored news program as measures of the intensity of the state’s effort in emotional propaganda. Our preliminary findings suggest three patterns of China’s strategic use of emotional propaganda. First, vocal pitch is positively correlated with enthusiasm in the text transcripts of news. Second, a higher vocal pitch is used to report on critical political news including the COVID-19 pandemic, the leadership, and political mobilization. Third, vocal pitch demonstrates considerable variation over time and peaks around important political events. This paper has both theoretical and methodological contributions to the study of political communication in authoritarian China.
Discussants: Bryce Dietrich (University of Iowa) and Rory Truex (Princeton University)
Oct. 14, 2022 (Friday), 12-1 PM (CST)
“Transparency for Authoritarian Stability: Open Government Information and Contention with Institutions in China“
Handi Li (Emory University)
Abstract: It is widely agreed that authoritarian governments conceal or censor information in order to maintain social stability. However, does transparency necessarily increase mass threats? Many non-democracies have recently adopted open government information (OGI)—a policy transparency measure allowing citizens to identify illegal government behaviors that affect them. Based on the Chinese case, I theorize that policy transparency can redirect popular discontent from the streets to institutional dispute resolution venues such as the courts. Using online and in-the-field survey experiments about OGI on land-taking compensation, I show that OGI improves citizens’ preference for legal and political institutions and causes them to prioritize institutions over protest when they have grievances against government. Multiple findings suggest that this is because the evidence of local misbehavior increases their perceived fairness of institutions for dispute resolution. This study shows that, unlike macro-level information transparency, policy transparency mitigates the risk of protest in an autocracy.
Discussants: Mary Gallagher (University of Michigan) and Guy Grossman (University of Pennsylvania)
Sep. 30, 2022 (Friday), 12-1 PM (CST)
“We Hear You: How do State-run Media Pay Attention to Online Public Opinion? Evidence from China“
Lucie Lu (UIUC)
Abstract: Winning citizens’ hearts and minds has long preoccupied autocrats, but we know surprisingly little about how they communicate with their citizens in an informational age. While state-run media arguably is their most important communicative tool in hand, conventional wisdom says that state-run media in authoritarian regimes are lying propaganda machines. Surprisingly, as media channels compete for audiences’ attention, state-run media have become the leading opinion leaders on social media. How do Chinese state-run media propagandize on social media so that audiences will not simply ignore, resist or ridicule their messages? I argue that state-run media no longer primarily produce blatant propaganda on social media. Instead, they engage with viral events online, reproduce fact-based news reporting and cite elite opinions with anti-foreign sentiment to highlight the superiority of the citizens’ home government. Using an original data collection of Weibo, I explore what types of trending searches are more likely to receive state-run media responses and the impact on activating opinions and pro-government sentiment in online discussions. I primarily use supervised machine learning methods to classify and analyze the contents of over 110,000 daily trending searches and their top public-rated comments, and social media posts from five state-run media outlets from November 2019 to December 2020. I find that the state-run media are more likely to engage with favorable comparisons of China compared to other benchmark democracies, especially the U.S.. When state-run media respond, fact-based reporting style is more effective than emotion-based anti-West opinions in activating the public’s positive evaluations of the Chinese government’s performances, or criticism of foreign countries. This paper revisits and challenges the prior view of state-run news outlets’ propaganda roles in the leading informational authoritarian regime. Hard propaganda is much downplayed on social media; in contrast, state-run media effectively orient the public discussions and sentiment to denigrate the West and praise their home government.
Discussants: Jennifer Pan (Stanford University) and Erik Peterson (Rice University)
Sep. 9, 2022 (Friday), 12-1 PM (CST)
“The Adaptability of the Chinese Communist Party“
Martin Dimitrov (Tulane University)
Abstract: The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) celebrated its one-hundredth birthday in 2021. Its durability poses a twofold question: How has the party survived thus far? And is its survival formula sustainable in the future? This book, which is forthcoming in the Elements in East Asian Politics and Society Series at Cambridge University Press, argues that the CCP has displayed a continuous capacity for adaptation, most recently in response to the 1989 Tiananmen protests and the collapse of communism in Europe. As the CCP evaluated the lessons of 1989, it identified four threats to single-party rule: economic stagnation; socioeconomic discontent; ideological subversion; and political pluralism. These threats have led to adaptive responses: allowing more private activity; expansion of the social safety net; promotion of indigenous cultural production; and rival incorporation into the party. Although these responses have enabled the CCP to survive thus far, each is reaching its limit. As adaptation stagnates, the strategy has been to increase repression, which creates doubt about the ongoing viability of single-party rule.
Discussants: Meg Rithmire (Harvard Business School) and Anne Meng (University of Virginia)
2022, Spring
May 13, 2022 (Friday), 12-1 PM (CST)
“Terrifyingly Normal: How Bureaucratic Incentives Shape Repression in China“
Erin Baggott Carter (USC), Jonghyuk Lee (NTU), and Victor Shih (UCSD)
Abstract: The extant literature on government repression has largely focused on cross-national factors such as regime types, institutional constraints on the executive, and proximity to neighboring civil wars. We add to a growing literature on subnational factors of repression by focusing on bureaucratic incentives to repress, which we argue can have a profound impact on subnational distribution of state repression. Focusing on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s institutions governing stability maintenance and cadre promotion, we hypothesize that the asymmetric distribution of risks in the event of large-scale riots, which necessitated bloody crackdowns, deterred promising officials from using force in the first place, whereas officials with lower career prospects were more indifferent to the use of force. Empirically, we test this hypothesis by drawing on novel data on the career trajectories of regime officials and a national data base of labor protests. Using both an instrumental variables strategy and a structural equation approach, we show that the promotion prospects of regime officials had a plausibly causal effect on repression. Consistent with our expectations, officials who were more likely to be promoted were less likely to violently repress labor protests and more likely to peacefully mediate them. However, officials, even promising ones, relied more on repression for protests that were large, occurred during pro-democracy anniversaries, or occurred in regions with perceived separatist threats, consistent with the extant literature’s observation of the regime’s hardline stance on political protests.
Discussants: Ben Appel (UCSD) and Dan Mattingly (Yale)
April 15, 2022 (Friday), 12-1 PM (CST)
“Credit for Compliance: How Institutional Proliferation Establishes Control in China”
Haemin Jee (Stanford University)
Abstract: Autocrats want to secure compliance with laws, regulate market players, and deter rule-violating behavior. However, they remain wary of strengthening the judicial institutions that are necessary to achieve these goals but could undermine autocratic power. How do autocrats resolve this legal dilemma? I argue that the answer lies in institutional proliferation, the creation of new information-consolidating and punitive institutions. Implications of this theory are tested through an empirical examination of the social credit system in China. I propose that the social credit system (1) shares the same goals as existing institutions and (2) addresses their limitations. Using original data on local implementation of the social credit system, I show that its major targets are commercial actors, and that reasons for punishment under the social credit system are closely tied to existing laws and regulations. Multiple government agencies contribute to the social credit system, illustrating its information-consolidation function. Finally, the social credit system also doles out additional punishments to increase enforcement. The paper then investigates the effects of the social credit system on law implementation. Taking advantage of the phased-in local enactment of the social credit system and newly collected panel data, I use a difference-in-differences design to demonstrate that the social credit system improves the enforcement of laws but does not lead to increased political power of the courts.
Discussants: Jennifer Gandhi (Emory) and Martin Dimitrov (Tulane)
April 1, 2022 (Friday), 12-1 PM (CST)
“How Information Flows from Global to Chinese Social Media”
Yingdan Lu (Stanford University), Jack Schaefer (UCLA), Kunwoo Park (Soongsil University), Jungseock Joo (UCLA), Jennifer Pan (Stanford University)
Abstract: A large body of research shows that government censorship—internet shutdowns, blockages, firewalls—impose significant barriers to the transnational flow of information despite the connective power of digital technologies. In this paper, we examine whether and how digital information flows across borders despite government censorship. We develop a semi-automated system that combines deep learning and human annotation to find co-occurring content across different social media platforms and languages. We use this system to detect co-occurring content between Twitter and Sina Weibo as COVID-19 spread globally. We find that less than half of viral tweets about COVID-19 and China co-appear on Weibo. Among co-occurring content, less than appeared to have flowed from Twitter to Weibo. Information describing the situation on the ground, which was likely useful to global audiences, made its way out of China. Viral tweets condemning the Chinese regime and Chinese people—content likely to elicit negative emotions and possibly confirm existing viewpoints—made its way into China. In contrast to expectation, information flows, both in and out of China, were facilitated by ordinary users more so than by media or online opinion leaders.
Discussants: Haifeng Huang (UC, Merced) and Tamar Mitts (Columbia).
March 18, 2022 (Friday), 12-1 PM (CST)
“The Irrational Investor Problem: Regulatory Visions, Paternalism, and the Stock Market in East Asia“
John Yasuda (Johns Hopkins University)
Abstract: Despite the marked transformation in E. Asia’s financial systems, regulators continue to employ hard paternalistic approaches to their stock markets that are viewed as counterproductive to development. In contrast to explanations centered on fleetfooted capital, economic development, political patronage, and institutional comparative advantage, this article argues that the persistence of hard paternalistic regulatory practices can be explained by a regulatory vision to a common analytical framework to order complex uncertain environments that serve as regulatory first principles – centered on an irrational investor. This understanding of investor rationality is in marked contrast to a liberal market variant, which emphasizes a rational investor, and thus provides a distinctive comparative lens to understand regulatory behavior in a moment of global financial hybridization. The study draws on over 90 elite interviews of senior regulators, stock exchange officers, and market practitioners conducted in China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, from 2015 to 2019.
Discussants: Diana Stanescu (Stanford) and Victor Shih (UCSD).
March 4, 2022 (Friday), 12-1 PM (CST) (1-2 PM EST)
Selective Delocalization: Patterns of Subnational Leadership Succession during China’s Anti-Corruption Campaign (2013–2020)
Jingyuan (Juan) Qian (University of Wisconsin, Madison) and Feng Tang (Tsinghua University)
Abstract: The Anti-Corruption Campaign, launched by President Xi Jinping in late 2012, has been one of the most far-reaching bureaucratic overhaul in modern Chinese history. How does the Anti-Corruption Campaign shape the pattern of personnel appointment at the local level? In particular, what type of officials are more likely to be appointed to replace ex-local leaders removed due to corruption? In this paper, we argue that a major selection criteria for successors to corrupt officials is local detachment. Because those officials are often tasked with eliminating their predecessor’s influence and strengthening local control for the upper-level authority, they are expected to be less embedded in local power dynamics and free from nepotism and conflict of interests. Using an original dataset of all Party secretaries and mayors from China’s 287 prefecture-level cities between 2013 and 2020, we show that officials who replace corrupt local leaders are much less likely to be chosen from the same locality compared to officials whose predecessors were transferred, promoted, or retired. In addition, successors to corrupt local leaders typically spend much shorter time serving in the locality in the past, and are more likely to have held previous positions in provincial- and central-level bureaucracies. Our study sheds new light on how Xi’s Anti-Corruption Campaign reshuffles the central-local relations in China.
Discussants: Mai Hassan (University of Michigan) and Zeren Li (Yale University)
February 18, 2022 (Friday), 12-1 PM (CST)
“Triumphalism and the Inconvenient Truth: Correcting Inflated National Self-Images in a Rising Power“
Haifeng Huang (University of California, Merced)
Abstract: Do people in a rising authoritarian power with pervasive propaganda and information control overestimate their country’s power and reputation in the world? This is an important question since national overconfidence and grandiose self-imagery can cause international conflicts and harm a country’s own development. I show, with a survey conducted in 2020 and a pre-registered two-wave survey experiment in 2021, that the Chinese public overwhelmingly overestimates China’s global reputation and soft power relative to benchmark public opinion polls on China conducted around the world, even during a crisis. Informing Chinese citizens of China’s actual international image lowers their evaluations of the country and its governing system and moderates their expectations for its external success. These effects from simple information interventions are at least somewhat durable, and they indicate that triumphalism and self-aggrandizement can be meaningfully mitigated.
Discussants: Songying Fang (Rice University) and Arturas Rozenas (NYU)
Chinese Politics Research in Progress 