Online Petitions, Responsiveness and Risk-Averse Political Selection in China

• In Event: Authoritarian Responsiveness in China, Russia and Vietnam

Abstract

Recent studies have explored the sources of government responsiveness in China, but the political implications of such responsiveness remain unclear. Combining a unique dataset of more than 350,000 online petitions with the biographical records of local officials, we find that citizens’ complaints against municipal and county jurisdictions will undermine municipal leaders’ promotion prospects when the respective provincial authorities are responsive to these complaints. Moreover, the findings hold when municipal leaders are connected to their respective provincial superiors. Through qualitative interviews, we find that provincial officials have incentives to consider negative online public opinions preemptively because virtual forums have become an important platform that can (i) provide unmasked information about their municipal agents’ actions and (ii) ignite popular grievances that can potentially turn into protests and other collective events. Both can influence not only provincial leaders’ future career opportunities but also their post-retirement well-being. Our findings extend the existing studies of responsiveness authoritarianism in China while incorporating them into the literature on political selection. More crucially, in the absence of competitive elections, we demonstrate the conditional role of public opinions in facilitating political accountability through government responsiveness.

Authors

• Chao-yo Cheng, Birkbeck, University of London

• Tianguang Meng, Tsinghua University

• Zesen Yang, Tsinghua University