Party States
Who Represses? Career Incentives and the Geography of Repression in China
Erin Baggott Carter, Jonghyuk Lee & Victor Shih
Journal of Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
We argue that the individual incentives of local officials, shaped by cadre management institutions, can have a profound impact on the distribution of state repression in authoritarian regimes. 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 deter officials with promising career prospects from using force, whereas officials with lower career prospects are more indifferent to the use of force. In regions deemed by the leadership as separatist, local leaders may fear backlash protests less because such disturbances are expected by the leadership. We test these hypotheses by drawing on novel data on the career trajectories of regime officials and a national database of labor protests. We employ two independent research designs: an instrumental variables approach and a difference-in-differences (DID) estimator. The evidence suggests that the promotion prospects of regime officials have a plausibly causal effect on repression. Consistent with our expectations, officials with better promotion prospects are less likely to violently repress protests and more likely to peacefully mediate them. However, officials rely more on repression for protests in separatist regions, consistent with fewer concerns about backlash protests because of the regime’s hard-line stance in these regions.
Does shaming make non-compliance with international court rulings costlier? Evidence from China
Hsu Yumin Wang, Stefano Jud & Will Giles
Journal of Peace Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Can naming and shaming reduce domestic public support for a government that fails to comply with an international court ruling? While existing research suggests that such tactics can diminish public support for non-compliance with international law, this evidence largely stems from Western democracies. Far less is known about how naming and shaming functions in autocratic contexts. We address this gap by conducting a conjoint survey experiment with 1,500 respondents in China -- an environment where naming and shaming is generally expected to have limited impact. In our experiment, respondents were informed about a ruling by the International Court of Justice against China. While we found that citizens generally favored non-compliance with the ruling, shaming by the United Nations significantly reduced public support for non-compliance. In contrast, shaming by the United States had no significant effect. These results suggest that naming and shaming may bolster domestic support for compliance with international court rulings, even in restrictive environments like China.
Two Peas in A Pod: Democracy and Capitalism
Vincent Geloso & Alex Tabarrok
George Mason University Working Paper, October 2025
Abstract:
Many people argue that democracy is incompatible with capitalism but they differ on whether democracy will subvert capitalism or whether capitalism will subvert democracy. The first argue that the logic of democracy leads to socialism with James Madison and Joseph Schumpeter decrying the road to serfdom while others like Karl Marx delighting in this historical inevitability. The second argue, based in part on fears of rising inequality, that capitalist oligarchs will come to control the democratic process cementing their dominance. Democratic forms may remain but true democracy will be ended. A third argument consistent with the views of Hayek, Mises, Friedman and others is that capitalism and democracy are compatible and even mutually reinforcing. We provide evidence for the third view by showing that most democracies are capitalist and most capitalist countries are democracies. Empirically there is no obvious and inevitable trend either towards or away from capitalism or democracy, although both rise and fall with events. We argue that there are significant complementarities in theory and practice between capitalism and democracy and, as a result, capitalist democracies are relatively stable.
How does the Chinese communist party embrace the private sector?
Kun Jiang, Frank Song & Peng Zhou
Journal of Comparative Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
The expansion of private firms presents new dynamics for the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the private sector. Utilizing data from 17,681 private firms spanning from 2006 to 2016, this study examines how the CCP reinforces its presence in the private sector by the extension of grassroots party branches into private firms. Our findings suggest that private firms with in-house party branches receive considerable financial support without facing increased government expropriation, which enhances the appeal of such branches to entrepreneurs. Furthermore, the presence of party branches has a greater impact in regions where the private sector plays a larger role and entrepreneurship is flourishing. We also find that in-house party branches tend to steer private firms to investments that generate higher social returns, potentially diverting resources away from their ongoing business activities. Such resource reallocation enhances the performance of private firms facing financing constraints.
The Domestic Political Economy of China’s Foreign Aid
Joris Mueller
Review of Economics and Statistics, forthcoming
Abstract:
I study how domestic political considerations influence the foreign policy choices of autocratic regimes, by analyzing China’s foreign aid. First, using contractor-level data, I document how the regime uses foreign aid projects to help maintain domestic stability: aid projects are awarded to state-owned firms in Chinese prefectures hit by social unrest, increasing employment and future political stability. Second, I find that this strategy to manage domestic unrest affects the global allocation of Chinese aid, since state-owned firms pursue projects in countries where they have prior connections.
The Reverse Cargo Cult: Why Authoritarian Governments Lie to Their People
Konstantin Sonin
University of Chicago Working Paper, May 2025
Abstract:
Why did the Soviet Union organize regular elections, national and local, with one candidate and reported 99.9% support with 99.9% turnout? Were the Soviet citizens so stupid that they did not understand that they have no say in choosing their government? The Reverse Cargo Cult metaphor explains why dictators tell their citizens lies that citizens know to be lies: a verifiable lie told by a politician changes citizens’ perceptions of politicians and reduces their willingness to replace them. The model explains the mechanics of authoritarian propaganda that puts much emphasis on persuading citizens how bad foreign politicians are.
Autocratic Audiences and Linguistic Complexity
Nikita Khokhlov & Alexander Baturo
British Journal of Political Science, October 2025
Abstract:
Making policy speeches is a major activity of authoritarian elites, yet we know surprisingly little about their incentives to be understood by constituents, and whether more effective communicators are rewarded. While many authoritarian actors care little about their audience and speak tediously, we argue that, in the service of legitimation and co-optation, simpler, more effective communication is required in protest-prone regions with lower regime support. Because such regions often have more developed economies and educated populations, paradoxically, this results in the opposite dynamics to that under democracy, where simpler speech is addressed at less educated, poorer constituents. Drawing on data from Russian governors’ major policy addresses and social media posts, and supplementing it with federal parliamentary speeches, we find that the linguistic complexity of elites reflects their audiences; elites also reduce it when their strategic context changes. In turn, more effective communicators are promoted. Our findings contribute to an understanding of authoritarian co-optation, elite incentives, responsiveness, and propaganda.
Curriculum, Political Participation, and Career Choice
Hongbin Li, Sai Luo & Yang Wang
Review of Economics and Statistics, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine the causal impact of ideological education on students' political participation and career choices by exploiting China's staggered rollout of a high school curriculum reform that emphasized political indoctrination. Using nationally representative survey data on college students that the authors collected, we find that exposure to the new curriculum increases the likelihood of joining the Chinese Communist Party by 14% and raises the probability of securing state-sector jobs after graduation by 15%. These results highlight the powerful role of ideological education in shaping students' political alignments and career trajectories.
Industrialization, Class Conflict, and the Closing Window of Democratic Opportunity
Stephen Parente, Luis Felipe Sáenz & Anna Seim
University of Illinois Working Paper, June 2025
Abstract:
This paper examines how the timing of industrialization shapes democratic transitions and the role of class dynamics in that process. A sequential game embedded in a growth model captures strategic interactions among landed elites, industrialists, and workers, with industrialization endogenously determined by policy. The analysis reveals a narrow window in which the industrial class prefers democracy to autocracy -- should the landed elite step aside. For late industrializers, this window often closes before democratization can occur, leading instead to a regime shift from landed to industrial autocracy. The model explains divergent political trajectories based on timing and class incentives.
The legacy of the (poor) deceased: The effect of the mortality rate on democracy
Saeed Khodaverdian
International Economics and Economic Policy, September 2025
Abstract:
We show that increases in mortality rates causally raise the democracy index within countries, with effects that are robust and consistent across diverse country groups. This relationship is driven by unequal impacts of mortality on economically weaker segments of society, leaving behind a population with higher productivity and greater human capital. These shifts strongly support the mechanisms proposed by Modernization Theory. In extreme cases, elevated mortality can even trigger democratic transitions. Our findings emphasize that changes in health conditions produce distributional effects that reshape political landscapes globally, highlighting the significant role of demographic shocks in political development.
The Gendered Persistence of Authoritarian Indoctrination
Nourhan Elsayed et al.
British Journal of Political Science, October 2025
Abstract:
A large literature has studied the effects of socialization under authoritarianism on political attitudes. In this research note, we extend this literature by demonstrating striking gender disparities in the post-transition persistence of these effects. We study the case of authoritarian indoctrination in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) using a regression kink design for causal identification. First, we draw on a unique survey fielded right before reunification to show that education under authoritarianism substantially reduced support for democratic capitalism and reunification with the West. In the second step, we triangulate multiple contemporary data sources to trace the persistence of these effects over time. More than two decades after the fall of the GDR, the attitudinal effects of authoritarian socialization persist only among men, but not women. Our results highlight considerable heterogeneity in the persistence of authoritarian legacies, raising critical questions about post-authoritarian ‘re-socialization’ and gendered adaptability.
A Precolonial Paradox? Rethinking Political Centralization and Its Legacies
Martha Wilfahrt
American Political Science Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
A paradox has emerged in the growing literature on the legacies of the precolonial past: areas home to precolonial centralized polities are associated with beneficial long-run outcomes in some studies, but harmful ones elsewhere. This article introduces an original dataset of precolonial African states in the nineteenth century to explain this seeming contradiction. By developing a typology of precolonial statehood, I show that there is no single legacy of the precolonial past. Rather, statehood only increases civil conflict where political power was highly concentrated in a polity. Where political authority was more diverse, conflict prevalence is lower. A largely inverse pattern holds for development outcomes. These findings, and the associated dataset, suggest promising new pathways for understanding not only the legacies of Africa’s precolonial past, but the study of comparative state-building, which has largely relegated the African experience to a single story.