Killing Two Birds with One Stone: Heterogeneous Treatment Effects of Encrypted Anticorruption Messages

This article investigates anticorruption messages used during China’s anticorruption campaign by creating an original dataset that covers 1,292 statements and 9,136 individual accusations of corrupt officials from 2013 to 2018. Through text-analysis methods, two types of accusations were identified: Descriptive Accusation (DA) and Rhetorical Accusation (RA), as well as the topics of both. I argue that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) employs subjective, abusive, and nonfalsifiable rhetoric (anticorruption rhetoric) to kill two birds with one stone. On the one hand, the CCP uses anticorruption rhetoric to frame corruption in China differently and shift blame to corrupt officials’ personal qualities rather than the political system (framing effect). Moreover, the CCP also uses anticorruption rhetoric as a tool to demonstrate its strength and to deter Chinese citizens from engaging in corrupt behaviors (deterrent effect). I conduct a survey experiment to assess these effects. The results show that anticorruption rhetoric does have both a framing effect and a deterrent effect. Furthermore, the framing effect mainly impacts citizens with a low level of political knowledge while the deterrence effect is more effective on citizens with a high level of political knowledge. The findings suggest that the anticorruption rhetoric is not merely symbolic but has substantive impacts on public opinion. The CCP adopts a smart strategy to encounter the potential backfire effect (priming effect) of its anticorruption campaign.

Corruption, Sex Scandal, and Female (Under)Representation: A Survey Experiment in China

The enduring presence of sex scandals in political realms is evident across diverse contexts. Yet, the influence of sex scandals on individual engagement in politics remains underexplored, particularly in authoritarian settings. This study investigates the impact of sex scandals involving corrupt officials on the inclinations of Chinese youth toward government employment, with a focus on potential gender disparities. Using a survey experiment, we find that exposure to sex scandals shapes individuals' willingness to engage in government service in a gender-specific manner. Notably, the heterogeneous treatment effects exacerbate the gender gap in willingness to work for the government. This gap is primarily attributed to increased willingness among male participants in the non-cadre group, who tend to be less politically ambitious and knowledgeable. This research underscores the intricate dynamics between sex scandals, gender, and political engagement. Our findings shed light on the role of public perceptions in political shifts and the advancement of gender equality and provide a supply-side story of female underrepresentation in China.