A discussion with Tongtong Zhang. Session moderated by Dan Bateyko of the Stanford Internet Observatory.
Despite lacking electoral incentives, officials in non-democracies establish numerous deliberation channels designed to respond to citizen grievances. What motivates government responsiveness under dictatorship? Previous research on authoritarian responsiveness largely contends that autocrats prioritize the appeals of potential dissidents. Instead, this paper shows that autocrats strategically provide helpful, substantive responses to regime conformists in order to incentivize political conformity among the public. Using original data of over 156,000 citizen appeals and government responses on Weibo (Chinese equivalent of Twitter), I find that local officials in China selectively provide substantive responses—responses that resolve the appealed problems—to citizens who have a better record of complying with the regime’s surveillance and censorship policies on Weibo. In contrast, officials selectively provide symbolic responses—responses that are rhetorical without solving the problems—to citizen appeals that are more likely to elicit collective action. Using semi-structured interviews with local officials in East, Central, and West China, I show that officials engage in this selective responsiveness primarily to send the signal to petitioners and potential petitioners that compliance, not organized opposition, opens doors for satisfying their demands. My findings suggest the need to re-conceptualize accountability under autocracy not only as a reactive approach to appease opposition, but also as a proactive strategy to cultivate conformity.
This session is part of the Winter Seminar Series, a series spanning January through March, hosted at the Cyber Policy Center with the Program on Democracy and the Internet. Sessions are in-person and virtual, with in-person attendance offered to Stanford affiliates only. Lunch is provided for in-person attendance.
In person attendance is available to Stanford affiliates and virtual attendance via zoom is open to the public; registration is required.
About the Speaker
Tontong is a Ph.D candidate at the department of Political Science at Stanford University. Her research focuses on authoritarian deliberation a
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