Jidong Chen|Jennifer Pan|Yiqing Xu
Sources of Authoritarian Responsiveness: A Field Experiment in China
Beijing Normal University|Stanford University|Massachusetts Institute of Technology
growing body research suggests authoritarian regimes responsive societal actors understanding sources authoritarian responsiveness remains limited challenges measurement causal identification conducting online field experiment among 2103 chinese counties examine factors affect officials incentives respond citizens authoritarian context baseline find approximately onethird county governments respond citizen demands expressed online threats collective action threats tattling upper levels government cause county governments considerably responsive whereas identifying loyal longstanding members chinese communist party increase responsiveness moreover find threats collective action make local officials publicly responsive together results demonstrate topdown mechanisms oversight well bottomup societal pressures possible sources authoritarian responsiveness