Local Institutions, Political Attitudes, and Political Behavior

• In Event: Poster Session: Comparative Politics II

Abstract

How does the context (i.e., “where you live”) impact how people think and what they do? How do local political institutions influence individual political ideology and political behavior? This research investigates whether the existence and density of government agencies affect individual behaviors in each locality. The independent variable is the frequency of political institutions in each locality, while the dependent variables measure individuals’ political attitudes and political behavior. They include participation in political discussions, voting, tax payment, regime support, and political trust. I also control demographic information, including age, gender, income, marriage, ethnicity, and CCP membership.
Using the China Internet Survey (CIS) in 2018, a nationally representative dataset, I record the political attitudes, political behavior, and location information of 3,144 respondents across China. I also use the location data of 1,048,575 political institutions web-scraped from Baidu Map based on Wang and Chang (2021). Joining political institutions’ location data to township polygons, I match respondents with polygons based on individual locations and estimate hierarchical regression models. The results show that: (1) a higher density of political institutions will improve people’s concern for political discussion and decrease their support for the regime. (2) A higher density of political institutions will decrease respondents’ willingness to vote and participate in any other forms of political activities. These results lend support to the connection between public goods and citizen behavior, and point to possible heterogeneity across communities in the effect of public service provision on political behavior.

Author

• Chengyu Fu, Harvard University