Constituency Service Under Nondemocratic Rule: Evidence from China
62 Pages
Posted: 11 Aug 2014
Last revised: 13 Oct 2016
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Sloan School of Management
Department of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania
Date Written: 2016
Abstract
Why do nondemocratic regimes provide constituency service? This study develops theory based on a national field audit of China's "Mayor's Mailbox," an institution that allows citizens to contact local political officials. Analyzing government responses to over twelve hundred realistic appeals from putative citizens, we find local service institutions in China are comparably responsive to similar institutions in democracies. Two key predictors of institutional quality are economic modernization and the intensity of local social conflict. We explain these findings by proposing a demand-driven theory of nondemocratic constituency service; in order to sustain the informational benefits of citizen participation, service institutions must increase responsiveness to citizen demand. We then offer supplementary evidence for this theory by analyzing the content of real letters from citizens to local officials in China.
Keywords: authoritarian regimes, institutions, constituency service, responsiveness, China
Suggested Citation:
Suggested Citation
Distelhorst, Greg and Hou, Yue, Constituency Service Under Nondemocratic Rule: Evidence from China (2016). APSA 2014 Annual Meeting Paper; Journal of Politics, Forthcoming; MIT Political Science Department Research Paper No. 2014-12; Rotman School of Management Working Paper No. 2453574; APSA 2014 Annual Meeting Paper. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2453574
