A Lot More Information, A Little More Attention: Public Input Valued by the Chinese Leadership

• In Event: Chinese Politics Mini-Conference: Information Politics: Collection, Communication, and Processing

Abstract

Established literature has proposed that to resolve the dictators' dilemma, nondemocratic regimes resort to public participation to harvest information. However, little is known about which types of public input are truly valued. This study answers the question drawing on a unique dataset of government leaders' written feedback made directly on citizens' online messages in China. After classifying these messages into policy areas using a supervised machine learning approach, this study finds that the attention of unelected leaders is not congruent with that of citizens. Whereas citizens mainly contact the government for urban administration, public transportation, and other services they find lacking, leaders prioritize issues that can provoke collective action (e.g., labor and rural affairs), reveal bureaucratic malfeasance, or jeopardize public safety (e.g., environment and regulation). Second, compared to complaints and inquiries, suggestions are more likely to receive feedback. This indicates that, in addition to keeping themselves informed of popular discontent, leaders pick out constructive suggestions that have the potential to optimize governance. Overall, by shifting the focus from the collection of reliable information to the selection of valuable information, this study enriches scholarly understanding about the value of public input for nondemocratic regimes.

Authors

• Yue Guan, University of Vienna

• Christian Goebel, University of Vienna