Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-04T23:38:58.517Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Concealing Corruption: How Chinese Officials Distort Upward Reporting of Online Grievances

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2018

JENNIFER PAN  and
KAIPING CHEN
JENNIFER PAN*
Affiliation:
Stanford University
KAIPING CHEN*
Affiliation:
Stanford University
*
Jennifer Pan, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, Building 120, Room 110 450 Serra Mall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-2050 (jenpan.com).
Kaiping Chen, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Communication, Building 120, Room 110450 Serra Mall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-2050
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A prerequisite for the durability of authoritarian regimes as well as their effective governance is the regime’s ability to gather reliable information about the actions of lower-tier officials. Allowing public participation in the form of online complaints is one approach authoritarian regimes have taken to improve monitoring of lower-tier officials. In this paper, we gain rare access to internal communications between a monitoring agency and upper-level officials in China. We show that citizen grievances posted publicly online that contain complaints of corruption are systematically concealed from upper-level authorities when they implicate lower-tier officials or associates connected to lower-tier officials through patronage ties. Information manipulation occurs primarily through omission of wrongdoing rather than censorship or falsification, suggesting that even in the digital age, in a highly determined and capable regime where reports of corruption are actively and publicly voiced, monitoring the behavior of regime agents remains a challenge.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 112 , Issue 3 , August 2018 , pp. 602 - 620
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Our thanks to Jianghong An, Rita Lu, Yanchen Song, Feiya Suo, Zhiheng Xu for excellent research assistance; to Steven Balla, Peter Lorentzen, Guillermo Rosas, Lily Tsai, the SMAPP Global meeting, and Bay Area China Social Science Workshop participants for their extremely helpful comments and suggestions; and to the Stanford Asia-Pacific Scholars Fund, Stanford China Fund, and Stanford IRiSS Faculty Fellows Program for research support.

References

REFERENCES

Cai, Yongshun. 2000. “Between State and Peasant: Local Cadres and Statistical Reporting in Rural China.” The China Quarterly 163: 783–805.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cai, Yongshun. 2013. “Information Collection and Anticorruption in China.” In Elites and Governance in China, eds. Zang, Xiaowei and Kou, Chien wen. New York: Routledge, 136–52.Google Scholar
Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. 2016. “Zhongguo gongchandang dangnei jiandu tiaoli[China Communist Party Internal Supervision Regulations].”.Google Scholar
Central Propaganda Department. 2009. Wangluo Yuqing Xinxi Gongzuo Lilun yu Shiwu [Theories and Guidance on Online Public Sentiment]. Xuexi chuban she.Google Scholar
Chang, Jonathan, Boyd-Graber, Jordan L., Gerrish, Sean, Wang, Chong, and Blei, David M.. 2009. “Reading Tea Leaves: How Humans Interpret Topic Models.” In Nips, Vol. 31, pp. 1–9.Google Scholar
Chen, Jidong, Pan, Jennifer, and Xu, Yiqing. 2016. “Sources of Authoritarian Responsiveness: A Field Experiment in China.” American Journal of Political Science 60 (2): 383–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Xi. 2009. “Power of Troublemaking: Chinese Petitioners’ Tactics and Their Efficacy.” Comparative Politics 41 (4): 451–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
China Daily. 2015. “New Anti-Corruption App Sparks Instant Flood of Public Reports.” Accessed December 13, 2016. http://bit.ly/1GhcZQl.Google Scholar
Cyberspace Administration of China. 2017. “Hulianwang Xinwen Xinxi Fuwu Guanli Guiding [Internet News and Information Service Management Regulations].” Beijing, China.Google Scholar
Dimitrov, Martin K. 2014a. “Internal Government Assessments of the Quality of Governance in China.” Studies in Comparative International Development, 1–23.Google Scholar
Dimitrov, Martin K. 2014b. “What the Party Wanted to Know Citizen Complaints as a “Barometer of Public Opinion” in Communist Bulgaria.” East European Politics & Societies 28 (2): 271–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Distelhorst, Greg, and Hou, Yue. 2017. “Constituency Service Under Nondemocratic Rule: Evidence from China.” Journal of Politics 79 (3).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Economist. 2017. “Chinese Officials Use Hotlines to Take the Public’s Pulse.” Accessed August 20, 2017. http://whr.tn/1imqqlx.Google Scholar
Edin, Maria. 2003. “State Capacity and Local agent Control in China: CPP Cadre Management from a Township Perspective.” China Quarterly 173: 35–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fishkin, James S., He, Baogang, Luskin, Robert C., and Siu, Alice. 2010. “Deliberative Democracy in an Unlikely Place: Deliberative Polling in China.” British Journal of Political Science 40 (2): 435–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freedom House. 2015. Freedom in the World 2015: The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Gao, Jie. 2016. “‘Bypass the Lying Mouths’: How Does the CCP Tackle Information Distortion at Local Levels?” The China Quarterly. p. doi:10.1017/S0305741016001491.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gunitsky, Seva. 2015. “Corrupting the Cyber-Commons: Social Media as a Tool of Autocratic Stability.” Perspectives on Politics 13 (01): 42–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
He, Baogang, and Warren, Mark. 2011. “Authoritarian Deliberation: The Deliberative Turn in Chinese Political Development.” Perspectives on Politics 9 (2): 269–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henochowicz, Anne. 2014. “Thousands of Local Internet Propaganda Emails Leaked.” China Digital Times. http://j.mp/leakedEmails.Google Scholar
Hillman, Ben. 2010. “Factions and Spoils: Examining Political Behavior within the Local State in China.” The China Journal 64: 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hsu, S. Philip, Zhao, Suisheng, and Wu, Yushan. 2011. In Search of China’s Development Model: Beyond the Beijing Consensus. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Huang, Yasheng. 1995. “Administrative Monitoring in China.” The China Quarterly 143: 828–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jiang, Junyan, Meng, Tianguang, and Zhang, Qing. 2016. “Closing the Influence Gap: The Policy Consequences of Online Participation in China.” APSA Annual Meeting.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kalathil, Shanthi, and Boas, Taylor C.. 2010. Open Networks, Closed Regimes: the Impact of the Internet on Authoritarian Rule. Washington D.C.: Carnegie Endowment.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, Gary, Pan, Jennifer, and Roberts, Margaret E.. 2013. “How Censorship in China Allows Government Criticism but Silences Collective Expression.” American Political Science Review 107 (2): 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kou, Chien-wen, and Tsai, Wen-Hsuan. 2014. “‘Sprinting with Small Steps’ Towards Promotion: Solutions for the Age Dilemma in the CCP Cadre Appointment System.” China Journal 71: 153–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kung, James Kai-Sing, and Chen, Shou. 2011. “The Tragedy of the Nomenklatura: Career Incentives and Political Radicalism during China’s Great Leap Famine.” American Political Science Review 105 (1): 27–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, Lianjiang. 2004. “Political Trust in Rural China.” Modern China 30 (2): 228–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, Ruichang. 2012. Zhengfujian Wangluo Zhili: Chuizhi Guanli Bumen Yu Difang Zhengfujian Guanxi Yanjiu [Network Governance: Top-down Management of Departments and Inter-Governmental Relationships]. Shanghai, China: Fudan University Press.Google Scholar
Lieberthal, Kenneth, and Lampton, David. 1992. Bureaucracy, Politics, and Decision Making in Post-Mao China. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lorentzen, Peter. 2013. “Regularizing Rioting: Permitting Protest in an Authoritarian Regime.” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 8 (2): 127–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lucas, Christopher, Nielsen, Richard A., Roberts, Margaret E., Stewart, Brandon M., Storer, Alex, and Tingley, Dustin. 2015. “Computer-Assisted Text Analysis for Comparative Politics.” Political Analysis p. mpu019.Google Scholar
Ma, Jun. 2012. “The Rise of Social Accountability in China.” Australian Journal of Public Administration 71 (2): 111–21.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, Rebecca. 2012. Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle For Internet Freedom. New York, NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Magaloni, Beatriz. 2008. “Credible Power-Sharing and the Longevity of Authoritarian Rule.” Comparative Political Studies 41 (4/5): 715–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Magaloni, Beatriz, and Kricheli, Ruth. 2010. “Political Order and One-Party Rule.” Annual Review of Political Science 13: 123–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mai, Bo, and Liber, Tim. 2015. “Web Tracking with Chinese Characteristics.” 65th Annual International Communication Association Conference.Google Scholar
Manion, Melanie. 2016. Information for Autocrats: Representation in Chinese Local Congresses. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Meng, Tianguang, Pan, Jennifer, and Yang, Ping. 2017. “Conditional Receptivity to Citizen Participation: Evidence from a Survey Experiment in China.” Comparative Political Studies 50 (4): 399–433.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michael, Gabriel J. Forthcoming. “Who’s Afraid of Wikileaks? Missed Opportunities in Political Science Research.” Review of Policy Research.Google Scholar
Morozov, Evgeny. 2012. The Net Delusion: the Dark Side of Internet Freedom. New York, NY: Public Affairs.Google Scholar
Nathan, Andrew. 2003. “Authoritarian Resilience.” Journal of Democracy 14 (1): 6–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
National Grassroots Party Work Key Textbook. 2013. Zuixin Dang de Xuanchuan Gongzuo Caozuo Fangfa yu Chuangxin Shiwu [Latest Guidelines and Procedures on How to Perform Propaganda Work]. Beijing, China: Hongqi Press.Google Scholar
Noesselt, Nele. 2014. “Microblogs and the Adaptation of the Chinese Party-State’s Governance Strategy.” Governance 27 (3): 449–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Brien, Kevin, and Li, Lianjiang. 1999. “Selective Policy Implementation in Rural China.” Comparative Politics 31 (2): 167–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Brien, Kevin J., and Li, Lianjiang. 2000. “Accommodating “democracy” in a one-party state: Introducing village elections in China.” The China Quarterly 162: 465–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Donnell, Guillermo. 1999. Horizontal Accountability in New Democracies. In The Self-Restraining State: Power and Accountability in New Democracies, eds. Diamond, Larry, Schedler, Andreas, and Plattner, Marc F.. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc., pp. 29–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
OECD. 2013. OECD e-Government Studies: Egypt 2013. Paris, France: OECD Publishing.Google Scholar
Oi, Jean C. 1995. “The Role of the Local State in China’s Transitional Economy.” The China Quarterly 144: 1132–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olken, Benjamin A. 2007. “Monitoring Corruption: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia.” Journal of Political Economy 115 (2): 200–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pan, Jennifer. Forthcoming. “How Chinese Officials Use the Internet to Construct their Public Image.” Political Science Research and Methods.Google Scholar
Pan, Jennifer, and Chen, Kaiping. 2018. “Replication Data for Concealing Corruption: How Chinese Officials Distort Upward Reporting of Online Grievances.” https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/2HRRC7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Park, Albert, and Wang, Sangui. 2001. “China’s Poverty Statistics.” China Economic Review 12 (4): 384–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pearce, Katy E., and Kendzior, Sarah. 2012. “Networked Authoritarianism and Social Media in Azerbaijan.” Journal of Communication 62 (2): 283–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Qiang, Xiao. 2011. “The Battle for the Chinese Internet.” Journal of Democracy 22 (2): 47–61.Google Scholar
Qin, Bei, Strömberg, David, and Wu, Yanhui. 2016. “Media Bias in China.” Working paper.Google Scholar
Qin, Bei, Stromberg, David, and Wu, Yanhui. 2017a. “Why Does China Allow Freer Social Media? Protests versus Surveillance and Propaganda.” CEPR working paper DP11778.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Qin, Bei, Stromberg, David, and Wu, Yanhui. 2017b. “Why Does China Allow Freer Social Media? Protests versus Surveillance and Propaganda.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 31 (1): 117–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, Margaret E., Stewart, Brandon M., Tingley, Dustin, Lucas, Chris, Leder-Luis, Jetson, Albertson, Bethany, Gadarian, Shana, and Rand, David. 2014. “Topic Models for Open Ended Survey Responses with Applications to Experiments.” American Journal of Political Science 58: 1064–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, Margaret E., Stewart, Brandon M., Tingley, Dustin, and Airoldi, Edoardo M.. 2013. “The Structural Topic Model and Applied Social Science.” In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems Workshop on Topic Models: Computation, Application, and Evaluation.Google Scholar
Rodan, Garry, and Jayasuriya, Kanishka. 2007. “The Technocratic Politics of Administrative Participation: Case Studies of Singapore and Vietnam.” Democratization 14 (5): 795–815.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sonnad, Nikhil. 2014. “Hacked emails reveal China’s elaborate and absurd internet propaganda machine.” Quartz. http://j.mp/Sonnad.Google Scholar
Stockmann, Daniela. 2013. Media Commercialization and Authoritarian Rule in China. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Truex, Rory. 2014. “The Returns to Office in a ‘Rubber Stamp’ Parliament.” American Political Science Review 108 (02): 235– 51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Truex, Rory. 2016. Making Autocracy Work. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsai, Lily. 2008. “Understanding the Falsification of Village Income Statistics.” The China Quarterly 196: 805–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallace, Jeremy L. 2016. “Juking the Stats? Authoritarian Information Problems in China.” British Journal of Political Science 46 (01): 11–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whiting, Susan. 2004. “The Cadre Evaluation System at the Grass Roots: The Paradox of Party Rule.” In Holding China Together: Diversity and National Integration in the post-Deng Era, eds. Yang, Dali and Naughton, Barry. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 101–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whyte, Martin. 2010. Myth of the Social Volcano: Perceptions of Inequality and Distributive Injustice in Contemporary China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Wintrobe, Ronald. 1998. The Political Economy of Dictatorship. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Xinhua. 2012. “China’s craze for online anti-corruption.” Accessed September 10, 2016. http://bit.ly/2blgIYz.Google Scholar
Yan, Ye, and Peng, Min. 2010. “The Unbalance Political Trust Distribution between Central Government and Local Government in China.” The Journal of Gansu Administration Institute 3 (008).Google Scholar
Yong, Hu. 2005. Blogs in China: China Media Project Case Study. Technical report, Peking University.Google Scholar
Zhan, Weiping, and Yu, Yongda. 2011. “Study of the Relationship Between Cadre Promotion and Career Path.” Human Resources Development of China 7: 75–8.Google Scholar
Zhang, Jian, Giles, John, and Rozelle, Scott. 2012. “Does it Pay to be a Cadre? Estimating the Returns to being a Local Official in Rural China.” Journal of Comparative Economics 40 (3): 337–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Pan and Chen supplementary material

Supplemental Appendix

Download Pan and Chen supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 92.1 KB
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.