LRCCS Noon Lecture Series | China's Ideological Spectrum

The study of ideology---of how public preferences are configured and constrained---can inform our understanding of key political outcomes in authoritarian regimes, but has received relatively little attention in recent years. Using data from on an online survey of nearly half a million respondents that cover a wide range of issue, we study ideology in China. We find that public preferences over policy and social issues fall into non-random groupings but are less constrained than preferences in competitive democracies. The configuration of preferences, which we call China's ideological spectrum, is multi-dimensional and are such that those who prefer for authoritarian institutions and conservative political values are more likely to espouse nationalistic views and to prefer state intervention in the economy and traditional social values, while those who prefer democratic institutions and liberal political values are less likely to hold nationalistic views and support traditional social values but more likely to support continued economic reforms. This latter set of views is more likely found in provinces with higher levels of development and among individuals with higher income and education. Our results provide suggestive evidence that economic conditions may shape societal cleavages, but that cleavages may not reflect a division between pro-regime or anti-regime preferences.

Yiqing Xu is an Assistant Professor at Department of Political Science, UCSD. He works in political methodology and positive political economy, with a special focus on development and institutions in China. He received a PhD in Political Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2016), an MA in Economics from China Center for Economic Research (CCER) at Peking University (2010) and a BA in Economics (2007) from Fudan University. His work has appeared, or will soon appear, in American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, The Journal of Politics, Political Analysis, among other peer reviewed journals. Yiqing is currently working on a few projects related to China, including ideology of the Chinese public and communication strategies of Chinese officials.