What Does Autocrats’ Welfare Buy?: A Regression-Discontinuity Design in China

• In Event: Redistribution under Authoritarian Rule and Authoritarian Legacies (Virtual Session)

Abstract

Existing literature on comparative authoritarianism points out that to achieve social control and claim popular legitimacy, autocrats tend to buy mass political support with benefits through programmatic welfare policies. However, we have known little about the contingent effectiveness of autocrats’ welfare toolkit. More importantly, scant attention has been paid to the possible regime-disturbing effects of welfare provision in authoritarian settings. Without bottom-up accountability, the delivery of social welfare benefits may entail discretional and unjust grassroots policy implementation, thus aggrieving recipients, and it may also awake relevant citizens’ rights/rules consciousness and thus galvanize their demanding requests and active contention. Using a dataset from a nationally representative survey, we via a regression-discontinuity design examine the underexplored mass political effects of a highly salient and important social assistance program in urban China and contribute to a nuanced understanding of welfare politics in authoritarian regimes.

Authors

• Yanjun Liu, Peking University

• Liwei Zhou, Peking University School of Government