Who Leads the Responses to the Coronavirus Pandemic in China? A Text-as-Data Approach

• In Event: Assessing Global Pandemic Response Strategies: Lessons from China, Korea, and the European Union

Abstract

While China is a de jure unitary state, throughout history, local governments have been pivotal in many instances of policy innovations. In this paper, we examine government policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in China. Drawing on an extensive collection of over 16,000 policy documents disseminated by the Chinese central, provincial, and prefectural governments, we employ topic models to infer the topic distribution of pandemic-related policies on a daily basis. Subsequently, we use a panel vector autoregressive model to uncover how the inception of a policy agenda at one governmental tier can instigate corresponding policy reactions from counterparts at other levels. We find that political affiliations between the national and subnational ruling cadres can serve as an informal conduit, bridging the information disparity concerning policy priorities and efficacy across distinct government tiers. Particularly during times of heightened uncertainty, as was the case in the initial year of the COVID-19 outbreak, upper echelons of government authorities are more inclined to adopt policy initiatives originating from their subordinate tiers.

Authors

• Tao Lin, University of Washington

• Chao-yo Cheng, Birkbeck, University of London