Spring, 2026

January 30 (Friday), 2026, 10-11AM (PST) / 12-1PM (CST) / 1-2PM (EST)

“Liberated Minds? How Chinese International Students Interpret Democracy“

Diana Fu (University of Toronto) and Jessica Teets (Middlebury College)

Abstract: Do youth who were raised and educated in authoritarian states become socialized to embrace democratic values of social equality, pluralism, and primacy of political rights (de Tocqueville 1835; Almond and Verba 1963; Putnam 1993)? Or do they retain or even deepen their commitments to authoritarian values and norms, such as social hierarchy, anti-pluralism, and the primacy of subsistence rights over political rights (Neundorf et al. 2024; Perry 2008)? Based on two sets of focus group interviews and follow-up surveys with Chinese international students in Canada and the United States, this study analyzes the political socialization process of university education on students’ political attitudes.  A close examination of their interpretive narratives of democratic values and life reveals complex and internally contradictory views such that it becomes harder to disentangle the “authoritarian” versus “democratic” values that they embrace.  On the one hand, Chinese international students embrace the democratic values including equality, ideological pluralism, civic engagement, and privacy.  To the extent that they criticize certain features of a democracy such as the prevalence of racial and wealth inequality, it is in reaction to the failure of democracies to deliver on their liberal promises captured by ‘democratic disillusionment’ (Norris and Inglehart 2019)  On the other hand, certain authoritarian political values remain “sticky” in so far as they also prize personal safety and security over political freedoms, a tradeoff that has fundamentally altered the nature of citizenship in the modern state (Turner 2015).  Combined, these results suggest universities’ socialization process is not a unidirectional impact of promoting more support for democratic values. 

Discussants: TBD

February 13 (Friday), 2026, 10-11AM (PST) / 12-1PM (CST) / 1-2PM (EST)

“Media Patronage and Infilitration: How Authoritarian Regimes Exploit Media Competition to Shape Global Information“

Matt DeButts (Stanford) and Jennifer Pan (Stanford)

Abstract: Media competition is often thought to shield democracies from government censorship and influence, yet we show it can become a conduit of transnational authoritarian influence. Analyzing 33 million articles from 198 Chinese-language outlets in 41 countries over 25 years, we document how the Chinese Communist Party employs what we term “media patronage”—the selective support of friendly news media —alongside “media infiltration”—the creation of locally-oriented new organizations—to influence foreign information markets. These twin strategies exploit market-based mechanisms in countries with media competition, seeking not to change individual outlets’ coverage but rather tilt media market share toward outlets that advance the Chinese regime’s agenda, relative to more critical outlets. This approach stands in contrast to cooptation or repression, frequently used to transform press coverage within a country’s borders. This paper reveals how authoritarian regimes can take advantage of the market competition that democracies rely on for press freedom, contributing to our understanding of authoritarian influence abroad, diaspora politics, and a source of media capture in democracies.

Discussants: TBD

March 6 (Friday), 2026, 10-11AM (PST) / 12-1PM (CST) / 1-2PM (EST)

“Where the App meets the Street: How Street-Level Bureaucrats become Embedded Data Workers“

Katharin Tai (MIT)

Abstract: Research into the role of new information technologies in state-society relations has produced strong evidence that new technologies can increase autocrats’ capacity. Some scholars argue they may even have resolved the autocrats’ informational dilemma, making their hold on power more secure. But how much has digital automation really allowed autocrats to emancipate themselves from relying on bureaucrats to control society?
Using original fieldwork data from China, one of the world’s most high-capacity autocracies, I show that digital technologies have not resolved the information problem. In contrast, I argue that collecting the kinds of intimate and personal data needed for targeted repression envisioned above ultimately depends on street-level bureaucrats. They leverage their embeddedness in local communities and residents’ trust to collect this information at the intersection of state and society in daily, shoe-leather work. Since this task cannot be replaced by technology, it places an important limitation on digital capacity: even in high-capacity autocracies, digital capacity depends on and replicates the unevenness of analogue
embedded capacity. The paper draws on 82 original interviews of government employees and contractors conducted across seven Chinese provinces between 2023 and 2025, and data from an original survey of 250 village-level bureaucrats in China.

Discussants: TBD

March 27 (Friday), 2026, 10-11AM (PST) / 12-1PM (CST) / 1-2PM (EST)

“Administrative Reform under Fire: Evidence from China’s Civil Service“

Mike Thompson-Brusstar (Trinity College)

Abstract: When are developing countries able to reform the state, and when do such reforms fail? This paper uses the dissolution of the reform coalition in China to theorize the role of elite consensus in administrative reforms. I argue that expert consensus shaped not only the adoption and shape of the original civil service provisions, but also its subsequent adoption after the model was discredited. The paper takes advantage of an original collection of personnel management publications from the ascendance of the civil service model in the mid-1980s academia through the eventual passage of the draft provision for a Chinese civil service in 1993. These data document how both insiders and outsiders altered their proposals and support for personnel reform after the reform coalition’s dissolution, with implications for the civil service’s design and implementation. The results shed light on the role of political elites and coalitions in institutional change, the politics of state capacity construction, and the role of epistemic competition on the content and support of administrative reforms.

Discussants: TBD

April 10 (Friday), 2026, 10-11AM (PST) / 12-1PM (CST) / 1-2PM (EST)

“Technology, Trade, and Power: The Sectoral Logic of China’s Outward FDI“

James Frick (U.S. Army War College) and Roselyn Hsueh (Temple University)

Abstract: Chinese outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) increased exponentially following the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. What explains the global financial risk taking at the commercial level by firms from an authoritarian state? This paper contends the Chinese government utilizes OFDI as a foreign policy tool to achieve political economic ends. The Chinese government leverages OFDI based on the perceived strategic value at the sector level of the investment destination to enhance the national technology base, promote the global competitiveness of indigenous industry, and achieve geopolitical ambitions. Exploiting a novel measure of technology intensity of trade, original cross-national panel models with country and time fixed effects examine Chinese OFDI in developing countries from 2010-2022. Results, accounting for resource and defense trade indexes, show Chinese OFDI is a function of technology intensity of exports (market access), technology intensity of imports (technology transfer), and United Nations roll-call votes (political affinity). Results by world region and illustrative cases further substantiate the paper’s arguments.

Discussants: TBD