FEREA 2025

Resisting the Party Line: How Chinese Scholars Navigate Ideological Control

Yuhua Wang

Authoritarian regimes often co-opt elites through institutional incentives and rewards, yet little research examines whether and how elites resist such efforts. We investigate the role of professional norms in shaping resistance among Chinese intellectual elites to the Chinese Communist Party’s ideological mobilization. Using an original dataset of over 200,000 academic articles published in top Chinese social science journals (2009–2023) and applying large language models for text analysis, we show that, on average, Chinese academics comply with the Party’s ideological and nationalistic directives. However, scholars with stronger professional norms—measured by PhD institution, rank, and university prestige—are more likely to resist. We argue that this equilibrium persists because the Party benefits from fostering internationally reputable scholars. Our findings illuminate the limits of authoritarian co-optation and highlight professional norms as a mechanism of political dissent in autocratic settings.

How Ideology Shapes Elite Politics in China  

Daniel Mattingly

Conventional accounts of authoritarian politics argue that elites prioritize political survival over ideological commitment. This paper challenges that view by demonstrating how ideology shapes elite competition in China. We argue that leaders use ideology to signal policy preferences and rely on personal networks to identify officials who are sincerely aligned with their ideological vision. Using a novel dataset of over 50,000 speeches and 40,000 policy documents from officials in China, we develop a method to measure ideological alignment with Xi Jinping. We find that elite conflict revolves around the degree of state intervention in the economy. Officials with personal ties to Xi who publicly align with his socialist ideology are more likely to advance in their careers and implement socialist policies, while those without such ties see no reward from pandering to Xi. These findings suggest that, contrary to dominant theories, ideology plays a central role in structuring elite politics under authoritarianism. 

Censorship Outside the Great Firewall: Using Pornography for Political Suppression

Tongtong Zhang

How do authoritarian regimes suppress dissent on foreign digital platforms beyond their direct control? This paper identifies a novel form of transnational repression: the strategic deployment of pornographic spam to discredit critics and distract audiences. We show that Chinese-language pornographic bots on X/Twitter disproportionately targeted critics of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), posting 130,460 explicit images and videos as replies to tweets during the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games. Among legitimate (non-pornographic) accounts receiving explicit replies, 70% were dissident accounts, compared to just 5% that were regime affiliated. Anti-CCP users with fewer than one million followers received nearly 1,000 explicit replies in a single week, whereas pro-CCP users with over ten million followers received fewer than four. We further find that pornography bots operated in coordinated waves, and many shared the same explicit texts in their replies. Evidence suggests these accounts were not purely political agents, but existing transnational scammers co-opted by the regime. Our findings extend theories of censorship and authoritarian foreign influence by highlighting "socially taboo flooding" as a mechanism of digital repression, distinct from traditional strategies of content removal, distraction, or regime defense.

Building the Brand: How Political Parties Use Policy and Valence to Engage Voters Over Time 

Jordan Hamzawi

Political parties are ever on the lookout for voters to win over, but what separates successful parties from failing ones? Using research on business models of corporate brand-building, I present a theory of political party brand-building based on party policy and valence. I argue that the most successful parties use a combination of issue ownership, credibility to deliver on policy, strong leadership, and high media visibility to create an endogenous loop of voter loyalty. The stronger the party brand, the stronger voter loyalty becomes, which in turn has voters look more favorably on the party. Through a combination of time series models and electoral data in Japan, I find that political parties that build their brand up early on find the most consistent success in subsequent elections. 

The Politics of Demography and Gender: The Unintended Consequences of Demographic Policies on Gender Backlash

Soosun You

In this paper, I examine the relationship between demographic policies and women's empowerment, focusing on South Korea, where gender has recently emerged as a significant political divide. I argue that demographic policies have played a dual role—first expanding women’s rights and later fueling a backlash against women's empowerment by creating a marriage squeeze, a phenomenon in which an excess of men compete for partners in the heterosexual marriage market. Specifically, I show how demographic policies, technological shifts, and entrenched social norms—such as a preference for sons—have collectively constrained the marriage market for cohorts of men now in their prime marrying age. The resulting difficulty in finding a spouse has led some men to develop stronger resistance to women's empowerment and support for leaders who employ antifeminist rhetoric. To support this argument, I leverage a technological policy shock to illustrate how demographic shifts have shaped individuals' exposure to the marriage squeeze. This study not only highlights the complexities of the marriage market’s impact on gender politics but also underscores the broader implications of demographic changes for societal attitudes and political discourse. 

Event Study Using Surveys: Application to a "Rally 'Round the Flag" Event in Japan 

Yuki Shiraito

The "unexpected event during survey" design (UESD), which exploits the "unexpectedness" of an event to estimate its causal effect on survey responses, is increasingly popular in political science. Yet, existing studies have not fully formalized identification and inference in this design. This paper first shows that, without an assumption about potential outcomes that is almost never explicitly made, the commonly used difference-in-means estimator does not identify the causal quantity that most applications aim to estimate. This result is due to the fact that the outcome variable is potentially measured at multiple time periods for each survey respondent and therefore the potential outcomes must be defined for each of these time points under minimal assumptions. We then propose another approach to the UESD, which is similar to statistical analysis in the regression discontinuity design, and lay out its estimand and inference. Under this approach, the unexpectedness of the event is not necessarily essential for identification, but it is consequential for the interpretation of the estimated causal effect. The event during survey design is a particularly useful tool for studying how political events affect public attitudes in industrialized democracies such as Japan and South Korea where opinion polls are conducted frequently. We illustrate our approach by reanalyzing a study of the rally 'round the flag effect of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in Japan.

Institutional Preferences and Democratic Design: Experimental Evidence from Japan 

Kenneth McElwain

Democratic stability depends on public acceptance of institutional checks and balances and their role in shaping policy responsiveness versus stasis. Three core institutions define governance structures: the executive system (presidentialism vs. parliamentarism), the legislative electoral system (single-member plurality vs. proportional representation), and the vertical distribution of power (centralization vs. decentralization). While countries tend to adopt institutional combinations aligned with majoritarian or consensual models, it is unclear whether voters share these preferences. This study uses survey experiments in Japan to examine whether voters perceive institutions as coherent packages or make independent, potentially inconsistent, choices. By analyzing shifts in preferences based on information exposure and sequencing effects, the findings offer new insights into how citizens conceptualize governance structures. These results contribute to debates on democratic design, which are particularly relevant during constitutional moments when political institutions are established or reformed.

Extreme Wartime Violence and Attitudes toward the Use of Force: Evidence from Atomic Bomb Survivors 

Sangyong Son

Previous studies have extensively examined how conventional wartime violence influences human attitudes and preferences for the use of force. However, despite the frequent past and potential future use of excessively destructive weapons, no research has explored how extreme wartime violence reshapes these attitudes and preferences. I argue that exposure to extreme wartime violence fosters anti-militarism. To test this argument, I leverage the natural experiment of atomic bombings in Japanese cities and collect original data from Japanese and Korean atomic bomb survivors. The findings indicate that direct exposure to atomic bombings leads to strong opposition to the use and acquisition of nuclear weapons. Additionally, the finding reveals two dimensions of atomic aversion: while survivors strongly oppose the use of nuclear weapons, their opposition to acquiring them is considerably weaker under imminent nuclear threats. These results suggest that extreme wartime violence shapes anti-militarism with varying strengths depending on external security environments.

Too Much But Never Enough: Administrative Capacity and Backlashes to State-building in Medieval Japan 

Erik Wang

How does state-building fail? Existing scholarship emphasizes both territorial reach and administrative capacity as keys to state-building, but these dimensions do not always progress in tandem. We argue that when territorial penetration outpaces administrative capacity, it will generate governance burdens that the state is ill-equipped to manage, ultimately fueling unrest. We test this argument in Japan under the Kamakura Shogunate (1185 - 1333). In preparation for the Mongol invasions, the Shogunate expanded direct rule into previously autonomous regions, despite its own underdeveloped bureaucratic infrastructure. Our difference-in-differences analyses show that this effort triggered rebellions against the Shogunate, identifying increased governance burdens as the key mechanism. These centrifugal forces culminated in long-term state decay, evidenced by the proliferation of castles after the Shogunate's collapse particularly in those regions. Our findings highlight the conundrum of premature state-building: without sufficient administrative capacity, efforts to strengthen central authority can paradoxically weaken the state's long-term viability.

United by Respect: Making U.S. Alliances Resilient in the Era of Strategic Uncertainty 

Ayumi Teraoka

How can the United States strengthen its alliances and enhance cohesion with its allies in the face of countervailing pressures from China? United by Respect advances the conventional “shared threats” explanation for states’ defense cooperation and argues that in the era of peacetime contestation and strategic uncertainty, the balance of respect demonstrated by the United States and China toward U.S. allies’ decision-making processes shapes their policy choices by decisively shifting domestic coalitions. It finds that, counterintuitively, the ability to appear independent of U.S. pressure makes it easier for U.S. allies to promote pro-alliance decisions at home and make alliances more resilient in the long term. With newly collected archival and interview evidence, the book illuminates the rich history of U.S. alliance management in Asia since the 1950s and offers theoretically and historically grounded policy implications for how to navigate intensifying U.S.-China competition.

Mobilizing for the State: Legacy of the Vietnam War on South Korea's Political and Economic Outcomes

Hojung Joo

Do states reward communities that sacrificed during wars? And do communities hold the state accountable when it does not? While the literature has argued that mass mobilization during wars presents an opportunity for redistribution, there is less work on whether redistribution is proportional to the sacrifices made. To test this argument, I construct a data of South Korean soldiers who were sent and killed in Vietnam during the Vietnam War and evaluate if regional economic growth was proportional to the soldiers killed per county. I also evaluate whether the communities hold the leader accountable for the sacrifices made. Preliminary findings suggests the presence of stronger support for the leaders in communities that bled more soldiers, regardless of the subsequent regional economic development.

Bokai Qi: From Rebels to Elites: Social Network, Power Delegation, and Coup-Proofing Strategy.

Xingchen Lan: Migrating Minds: State-Sponsored Mobilization and Return of US-Trained Chinese Scientists During Early Cold War.

Ze Cai: Know Your Opponent and Know Yourself: The Political Economy of Relative Performance Evaluation.