Cooptation without opposition: government response in the authoritarian legislature in China

ABSTRACTCooptation is widely applied to study authoritarian legislatures, but it is often used to identify and placate the opposition groups. For one-party authoritarian regimes in which the hardcore opposition groups are not represented in the legislature, do autocrats still display dynamics of cooptation when responding to the delegates? Based on a unique dataset of government responses to delegate proposals in China, this article finds that the Chinese regime indeed responds to People’s Congress delegates based on the need for cooptation. Delegates who are members of the ruling Communist Party of China (CCP), who are more tightly controlled through the party institution, receive less favourable state responses than non-CCP delegates. However, the disadvantages of CCP delegates disappear when the risk of internal defection increases. The findings further show that even in the absence of strong opposition parties, authoritarian regimes still adopt cooptation strategies in legislatures.KEYWORDS: Cooptationauthoritarian legislaturegovernment responseChinasingle-party AcknowledgementI thank editors and two anonymous reviewers for their suggestions. The early versions of this paper received helpful feedback from Li Shao, Ye Wang, Simon Weschle, and the doctoral students from my quantitative method class. I also thank Yuhua Wang for sharing the anticorrupton dataset. Binzizi Dong, Shanglin Han, Yaqi Kang, Jie Liu, Jiazheng Lu, and Xiaoyu Yang provided excellent research assistance. I am also grateful for the help for my fieldwork provided by Xueyi Chen, Chenhao Ma and Chihao Zhao. All errors are my own.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Gandhi, Political Institutions under Dictatorship, Magaloni, “Credible Power-Sharing and the Longevity of Authoritarian Rule.”2 Malesky and Schuler, “Nodding or Needling: Analyzing Delegate Responsiveness in an Authoritarian Parliament.”, Truex, Making Autocracy Work: Representation and Responsiveness in Modern China, Hou, The Private Sector in Public Office: Selective Property Rights in China, Schuler, United Front: Projecting Solidarity through Deliberation in Vietnam’s Single-Party Legislature.3 Manion, “Authoritarian Parochialism: Local Congressional Representation in China.”, Lü et al., “Policy Coalition Building in an Authoritarian Legislature: Evidence from China’s National Assemblies (1983–2007).”4 Gandhi, Political Institutions under Dictatorship, Malesky and Schuler, “Nodding or Needling: Analyzing Delegate Responsiveness in an Authoritarian Parliament.”, Truex, Making Autocracy Work: Representation and Responsiveness in Modern China.5 Manion, Information for autocrats: representation in Chinese local congresses, Gueorguiev, Retrofitting Leninism: Participation Without Democracy in the People's Republic of China.6 For example, see: Truex, Making Autocracy Work: Representation and Responsiveness in Modern China, Hou, The Private Sector in Public Office: Selective Property Rights in China.7 Liu, “Policy Influence of Delegates in Authoritarian Legislatures: Evidence from China.”8 Bueno de Mesquita et al., The Logic of Political Survival, Svolik, The Politics of Authoritarian Rule.9 Zhu et al., “Eating, Drinking, and Power Signaling in Institutionalized Authoritarianism: China’s Antiwaste Campaign Since 2012.”10 Svolik, The Politics of Authoritarian Rule.11 Zhu et al., “Eating, Drinking, and Power Signaling in Institutionalized Authoritarianism: China’s Antiwaste Campaign Since 2012.”12 Manion, “Authoritarian Parochialism: Local Congressional Representation in China.”, Truex, Making Autocracy Work: Representation and Responsiveness in Modern China, Hou, The Private Sector in Public Office: Selective Property Rights in China, Williamson and Magaloni, “Legislatures and Policy Making in Authoritarian Regimes.”13 Kuran, Private Truths, Public Lies.14 Manion, Information for Autocrats: Representation in Chinese Local Congresses, Truex, Making Autocracy Work: Representation and Responsiveness in Modern China.15 Malesky and Schuler, “Nodding or Needling: Analyzing Delegate Responsiveness in an Authoritarian Parliament.”, Gueorguiev, Retrofitting Leninism: Participation Without Democracy in the People's Republic of China.16 Stromseth et al., China's Governance Puzzle: Enabling Transparency and Participation in a Single-Party State, Kornreich, “Authoritarian Responsiveness: Online Consultation with “Issue Publics” in China.”17 Truex, Making Autocracy Work: Representation and Responsiveness in Modern China.18 Magaloni, “Credible Power-Sharing and the Longevity of Authoritarian Rule.”, Williamson and Magaloni, “Legislatures and Policy Making in Authoritarian Regimes.”, Gandhi, Political Institutions under Dictatorship.19 Hou, The Private Sector in Public Office: Selective Property Rights in China.20 Jiang et al., “From Internet to Social Safety Net: The Policy Consequences of Online Participation in China.”21 Liu, “Policy Influence of Delegates in Authoritarian Legislatures: Evidence from China.”22 Svolik, The Politics of Authoritarian Rule.23 Gandhi, Political Institutions under Dictatorship.24 Manion, Information for Autocrats: Representation in Chinese Local Congresses, 53.25 Lü et al., “Policy Coalition Building in an Authoritarian Legislature: Evidence from China’s National Assemblies (1983–2007).”26 O'Brien, “Agents and Remonstrators: Role Accumulation by Chinese People’s Congress Deputies.”27 Truex, Making Autocracy Work: Representation and Responsiveness in Modern China, 37.28 Gandhi, Political Institutions under Dictatorship, 87.29 Ang, “Co-Optation & Clientelism: Nested Distributive Politics in China’s Single-Party Dictatorship.”, Xu, “To Repress or to Co-opt? Authoritarian Control in the Age of Digital Surveillance.”30 Truex, Making Autocracy Work: Representation and Responsiveness in Modern China, 94.31 Reuter and Robertson, “Legislatures, Cooptation, and Social Protest in Contemporary Authoritarian Regimes.”, Kim and Gandhi, “Coopting Workers under Dictatorship,”---.32 Bueno de Mesquita et al., The Logic of Political Survival, Reuter and Robertson, “Subnational Appointments in Authoritarian Regimes: Evidence from Russian Gubernatorial Appointments.”33 Nathan, “Authoritarian Resilience.”34 Reuter and Szakonyi, “Elite Defection under Autocracy: Evidence from Russia.”35 See a similar assessment in Truex, Making Autocracy Work: Representation and Responsiveness in Modern China., 94.36 Ibid.37 Interview with an Anhui official (August 7, 2018) and a delegate in Jiangsu (July 28, 2018).38 Truex, Making Autocracy Work: Representation and Responsiveness in Modern China, 65.39 Military delegates are excluded because they never submit proposals.40 The gender, ethnicity, and party affiliation can be found for approximately 90% of the delegates. Age and education are available for approximately 80% of the delegates.41 Data source: https://bit.ly/3JAbepj (accessed on February 15, 2022).42 Wang and Dickson, “How Corruption Investigations Undermine Regime Support: Evidence from China.”43 Wang, “Frightened Mandarins: The Adverse Effects of Fighting Corruption on Local Bureaucracy.”, Zhu et al., “Eating, Drinking, and Power Signaling in Institutionalized Authoritarianism: China’s Antiwaste Campaign since 2012.”, Jiang et al., “The Price of Probity: Anticorruption and Adverse Selection in the Chinese Bureaucracy.”, Yang, “Corruption Monitoring and the Supply of Politicians in China.”44 The investigation data for 2013 are used for the 2014 meeting. Investigations on officials in provincial agencies may not be attributed to any specific city agencies; see the Online Appendix for a discussion on this.45 Eight delegates are excluded from the analysis because they do not appear in the delegate list. They might have been elected in by-elections, but their information cannot be confirmed.46 Common evidence confirming a delegate's party affiliation includes candidacy announcements, a position on any kind of party committee, an excellent party member award, or participation in any party activities. However, there are very few events or activities that can confirm an unaffiliated status, except for candidacy announcement.47 Gandhi, Political Institutions under Dictatorship, Magaloni, “Credible power-sharing and the longevity of authoritarian rule.”, Williamson and Magaloni, “Legislatures and Policy Making in Authoritarian Regimes.”48 Liu, “Policy Influence of Delegates in Authoritarian Legislatures: Evidence from China.”49 Truex, Making Autocracy Work: Representation and Responsiveness in Modern China, Hou, The Private Sector in Public Office: Selective Property Rights in China, Manion, “Authoritarian Parochialism: Local Congressional Representation in China.”50 Truex, “Authoritarian Parochialism: Local Congressional Representation in China.”51 For example, see: Bueno de Mesquita et al., The Logic of Political Survival.52 Interview with Anhui delegate (August 7, 2018).53 Truex, “Consultative Authoritarianism and Its Limits.”, Gueorguiev, Retrofitting Leninism: Participation Without Democracy in the People’s Republic of China.54 Wang, Tying the Autocrat's Hands: the Rise of the Rule of Law in China, Liu, “Punish the Dissidents: The Selective Implementation of Stability Preservation in China.”Additional informationFundingThis work was partially supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (CityU 21608421).Notes on contributorsDongshu LiuDongshu Liu is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Public and International Affairs, City University of Hong Kong. His research focuses on the political economy and behaviour of authoritarian regimes, particularly in China.