Peer Reviewed
Visibility Projects and De-privatization: A Case of China’s Urban Bus Sector, Comparative Political Studies, online first, DOI: 10.1177/00104140261431812
Previously on SSRN
Abstract: This article introduces the concept of visibility in infrastructure politics and public projects. I introduce what “visibility projects” are—distorted public projects aimed at increasing government officials’ visibility in politics and career prospects. These projects are highly costly and often compromise business interests because political visibility does not often translate into business profits. Using China’s urban bus sector as a case, I further show that when a sector is chosen for visibility projects, government officials can seek financial contributions and operational changes from businesses in the sector, creating an uneven playing field between private companies and state-owned enterprises. Private companies, facing hard budget constraints, are more likely to resist visibility projects than state-owned firms, which can ultimately lead to de-privatization of a sector. I show these dynamics with a quantitative analysis based on an original dataset, a process-tracing case study, and in-depth interviews.
Disappearing Research: Academic Control and Self-Censorship in China, the China Journal 94 (1). (with Elizabeth Plantan)
Featured on Financial Times, China Digital Times.
See a review by Andrea Ghiselli here.
Abstract: How does state censorship contribute to self-censorship in Chinese universities? How does self-censorship in turn affect academic output? This paper addresses these questions by unveiling the mechanisms of self-censorship and investigating their impact on social science research in and about China. First, we draw on in-depth interviews with scholars and students affiliated with Chinese universities to develop a typology of the mechanisms of self-censorship. Second, we analyze over 5,000 hand-coded publications of scholars based at US and Chinese universities from 1985 to 2022 to determine the consequences of self-censorship for the production of knowledge. The findings reveal which research topics have “disappeared” over time and which have “migrated” from Chinese- to English-language venues, often leading to broader self-censorship outcomes than the regime intended. Additionally, we find that US-based scholars are not immune to these pressures. These findings contribute to scholarship on authoritarianism, (self-)censorship, and academic freedom.
The Reputational Spillovers of China’s Environmental Stewardship: Experimental Evidence from Public Opinion in the Global South, the China Quarterly, conditional acceptance. (with David Bulman and Kerry Ratigan)
Abstract: China is increasingly active in global governance and attentive to its “capacity to craft the China story” through initiatives like the “Green Belt and Road.” Moreover, China is a leader in green technology an renewable energy investment, but also in greenhouse gas emissions. Does information about China as a green investor or leading polluter shape public preferences for China as a global leader? Based on a pre-registered, population-representative survey experiment in ten Global South countries, we find that new information about China’s environmental stewardship not only affects preferences for China as a global leader in environmental issues, but also has reputational spillovers for support of China’s leadership in domains including health, trade, and security. Our data suggest that this effect is produced as respondent update their perceptions of China as possessing key leadership qualities. This study contributes to the research on public perceptions of China’s potential for leadership in global governance.
Foreign Borrowing, Sovereignty, and Public Opinion in the Global South: Traditional Lenders or China?, Review of International Organizations, SI: Public Opinion and International Organizations, October 2025. (with David Bulman and Kerry Ratigan)
Featured on NPR.
Previously in AidData Working Paper Series, #134.
Abstract: Foreign debt is a salient political issue across the Global South, sparking protests and political action. Do widespread and longstanding critiques of traditional multilateral lenders such as the IMF and the World Bank imply that China’s rise as a lender is welcomed by publics in the Global South? Or does dissatisfaction with Chinese lending practices lead to preferences for traditional multilateral lenders? We propose that the public is particularly sensitive to the sovereignty implications of foreign debt. Therefore, loans and lenders perceived as more likely to infringe on sovereignty will be less attractive to Global South publics. We test these contentions through a pre-registered, population representative survey experiment (n = 8,762) in nine middle-income democracies across three regions: South America, Southeast Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. We find that publics in these nine countries are highly engaged in the issue of debt and concerned about the implications of debt for both sovereignty and the local economy. As a result, the public tends to prefer the traditional multilateral lenders, the IMF and World Bank, as well as private lenders. The public is less favorable towards US lending, but even less so towards that of China. As the first multi-country study of public opinion of debt and its intrinsic sovereignty concerns in middle-income democracies, this research provides lessons for international financial institutions as well as insights regarding the durability of the liberal international order.
Firm’s Source Country or Project Characteristics? Survey Experiments on Preferences for Chinese Investment in the Global South, the Chinese Journal of International Politics, Volume 18, Issue 3, 2025, Pages 267–293, https://doi.org/10.1093/cjip/poaf006 . (with David Bulman and Kerry Ratigan)
Abstract: Do individuals favor a particular foreign investment project based mainly on the investing company’s source country or the characteristics of the investment project? We know surprisingly little about this question, particularly in the Global South, an increasingly important destination for foreign investment. Employing conjoint analysis and informational text treatments, our pre-registered study investigates how the public assesses Chinese investment, the extent to which source country and project characteristics shape preferences, and the implications of Chinese investor behavior for preferences for cooperation with China. We find that, against conventional wisdom, Global South publics do not discriminate against Chinese investment projects. We reveal the determinants of preferences towards Chinese investment in ten middleincome democracies in Sub-Saharan Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia (N=20,001). This research contributes to the literatures on foreign investment preference formation and global Chinese investment, a phenomenon with profound geopolitical implications.
Tournament style bargaining within boundaries: Setting targets in China’s Cadre Evaluation System, Journal of Contemporary China, 31(133), 116-135. (with Cai Zuo)
Featured on the China File.
Abstract: Are evaluation targets negotiable in China’s cadre evaluation system? If so, which ones and how are they negotiated? Little empirical work answers these questions, which reveals the reconciliation of political control with local governance considerations in a centralized system. This article bridges the literature on bureaucratic bargaining with that on the target responsibility system by examining intra-governmental bargaining in the performance target-setting process. In-depth interviews reveal a “tournament“ logic of target-setting bargaining. Drawing on interviews and an original dataset of personnel rules, we conceptualize and classify performance targets based on their negotiability. The findings bring to light the presence of bargaining, albeit bounded, in the top-down rational-instrumental mechanism of the target responsibility system, and the intricate relationship between merit and personal connections in political selection.
Book Chapter
"Chinese SOEs and the Legal Challenges in Peru's Public Procurement Sector," in edited volume "The Legal Dimensions of China's Presence in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) ," forthcoming in The Globalization: Law and Policy series, Routledge. (with Claudia Martínez-Zúñigain)
Book Reviews
Dictatorship and Information: Authoritarian Regime Resilience in Communist Europe and China by Martin K. Dimitrov, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2023, xix + 470 pp. The Developing Economies.
High Wire: How China Regulates Big Tech and Governs Its Economy. By Angela Huyue Zhang. New York: Oxford University Press, 2024. 420 pp. ISBN: 9780197682258. Forthcoming, the Journal of Asian Studies.
Working Papers
“How Perceptions of Democratic Backsliding Shape Preferences for Cooperation with China” (with David Bulman and Kerry Ratigan)
Abstract: Does a world experiencing democratic backsliding pose less of a threat to an authoritarian global power such as China? We answer this question using survey experiments in a large-scale, population-representative survey in ten middle-income democracies in South America, Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. First, using original targeted questions, we identify the relationship between an individual's perception of democratic quality in their home country and their favorability towards and preference for cooperation with China. Subsequently, we also explore the mechanism driving this relationship. Using randomized informational text treatments, we test the following hypothesis: information on global democratic backsliding increases public anxiety of the quality of democracy in one’s home country; such anxiety changes how the public view China both in terms of favorability and cooperation preferences. We focus on ten democracies in the Global South to capture populations that are substantively significant and understudied, and that have substantial political and economic ties with China.
"Political Distortion of Solid Waste Treatment in China: How Incineration Became the Dominant Approach in Chinese Cities" (with Junyang Wang)
Abstract: Why do Chinese local governments overbuild incineration plants, a public project that often invites not-in-my-backyard protests and let go of a “safer” option that is also encouraged by the national government, recycling? Constrained by land resources, which is prioritized for urban development, large cities in China began to explore options beyond landfills in the 2000s, mostly recycling and waste incineration. Over time, even though the Chinese national government called for more recycling as a sustainable way to treat solid waste, Chinese cities continued to favor waste incineration, a more controversial way to treat solid waste. Not only did incineration become the main method of solid waste treatment, Chinese cities even over-developed incineration to such a degree that growth of China waste incineration plants already surpassed the actual and projected demands for waste volume, creating many inefficient plants operating at partial capacity. In this article, we use process tracing to illustrate how the government incentive to grow state-owned enterprises, rather than environmental concerns, led to the over-development of incineration plants in China. We show how state-business relations and the influence of state-owned enterprises, a key interest group in Chinese economy, distorted a key environmental policy.
"Central Bank Independence in Autocracies" (with Michael Aklin, Andreas Kern, and Jack Seddon)
Abstract: Despite a recent surge in the academic literature on central bank independence (CBI), little is known about its drivers in authoritarian states. Our theoretical argument starts from the simple idea that no country is an island. Whereas autocratic regimes possessing abundant resource wealth have access to large amounts of hard currency to pay for imports, their resource-poor peers have to earn hard currency through an opening to international trade. These resource-poor authoritarian rulers will opt for CBI in order to insure against the disruptive political and economic forces arising from their reliance on international trade. To test these predictions, we draw on carefully selected historical cases and augment them with a large-N analysis. We show that countries that engage in more trade and have fewer resources tend to make their central banks more independent. Our findings underscore the importance of incorporating international trade when analyzing the institutional design of central banks.
“Business under the Chinese Communist Party: from Class Enemy to Politicized Actors”
Abstract: This paper traces the evolution of state–business relations in China from 1949 to the present in order to explain the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) contemporary, and seemingly oscillating, treatment of private business. I identify four phases in the CCP’s relationship with private enterprise: breaking resistance and extracting wealth (1949–1957); class eradication (1958–1976); reintroduction and oscillation (1976–1993); and recognition and politicization (1993–present). Drawing on government documents, news reports, and academic sources, the paper concludes that although private enterprise generates economic legitimacy for the CCP, firms have never been granted full autonomy—helping explain the persistent absence of genuine rule of law in China’s economic governance.
"China's favored investment destinations"
“Do public perceptions of China impact voting in the Global South?” (with David Bulman and Kerry Ratigan)
"How do Chinese overseas students experience the West", (with Ting Luo)