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Professor Pasquale Pasquino raised the question that citizens’ interest to justice
is probably connected to the traditional view of morality-based legitimacy in
China, which is different from the procedural justice in the western
democracies. Such difference may lead to different impact on regime stability.
(On this point, Professor Shanker Shatyanath suggested that the authors can
look at how the political legitimacy of Mao Zedong was sustained after the Great
Leap Forward.)
Results have indicated that inclusive strategy lowers public sentiment against
Chinese investment projects, as Chinese firms partnered with non-cronies
and engaging directly with the local communities were viewed more
favorably by the local Myanmarese; and there is also spillover effect into the
cooperation framework, since local public support on broader economic
cooperation such as the One Belt One Road initiative is contingent on
Chinese firm’s local partner and social engagement strategy. Therefore, the
authors concluded that while there has been bias against Chinese investment
projects in Myanmar (as Japanese firms are perceived more favorably in
general), Chinese firms may increase local support and contribute to Beijing’s
strategic goals by changing their entry modes.
The authors propose three mechanisms to justify this effect. The first
mechanism is information revelation. That is, if citizens can communicate their
preferences to the local government, the officials would have a better
understanding of what policies best match the needs of citizens. The second
mechanism is amplifying threats of collective actions. That is, if citizens are
allowed to express their grievance on social networks, the local government can
know whether and when to make policy concessions to avoid collective actions.
The last mechanism is top-down monitoring. That is, citizens have better
information about the performance of local leaders, thus allowing them to
petition online provides a better and cheaper way of bureaucratic monitoring.
To test the validity of their arguments, the authors exploit Local Leader Message
Board, a major online petition forum created and maintained by the official
website of the CCP’s central media — People’s Web (人民网). LLMB offers
an integrated platform for citizens to contact local government officials in all
subnational units. The most interesting and important feature of LLMB is that it
is administered by the central government instead of local governments. This
implies that petitions concerning only local issues would not be censored.
The authors estimate the effect of total number of petitions about a city
government on the provision of local welfare programs including social safety
net, pension coverage, medical insurance, social security, and migrant workers
using topic models from local Government Work Reports. They identify a
positive effect. Moreover, the authors test the three potential mechanisms that
channel petitions to welfare provisions. They find evidence supporting the
information revelation mechanism and the amplifying collective action
mechanism but no evidence supporting the monitoring mechanism.
The Quantitative China Studies Semniar (QCSS) is a small working group that brings together scholars who apply cutting-
edge empirical methods or formal models on China Studies. Co-organized by Columbia, NYU and Princeton University,
this group is set to discuss latest research and provide feedback at early stages of research projects. The aim is for
researchers to incorporate scholarly critique and comments at early stages of design and analysis.
QCSS encourages comprehensive as well as profound discussion on a variety of China-related issues. This group serve as a
platform to discuss topics including but not limited to development, governance, society, public policy and economy of
China. We sincerely welcome the participation of scholars from any discipline.
We sincerely appreciate the supports from the Wilf Family Department of Politics, New York University, and Center on
US-China Relation, New York University.
The host team of the First Quantitative China Studies Semniar (QCSS-1) are:
Conventor Ye Wang
Coordinator Reed Zhenhuan Lei
Editor Board Jason Qiang Guo
Zhaotian Luo
Ye Wang
Team Jason Qiang Guo
Yishuang (Athena) Li
Reed Zhenhuan Lei
Zhaotian Luo
Ye Wang
Sophie Xiangqian Yi
Junlong Aaron Zhou
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