A spatial valence model of political participation in China

Abstract

In spatial models of political competition in democracies, citizens vote for the party or candidate that is the closest to their own ideological position, while in valence models, voters decide on the basis of non-policy factors, such as competence. What remains unclear, however, is whether citizens in authoritarian regimes use spatial or valence considerations to guide their decisions to participate in politics. This study uses data from the 2015 Chinese Urban Governance Survey to measure the ideology of Chinese citizens, and estimates an empirical stochastic model to explore how Chinese citizens use ideological distance and valence to determine how they want to participate in politics.The results show that valence issues, such as perceived government competence, play a larger role in political participation than ideology.

Categorical Confusion: Ideological Labels in China

“…My expectation is that the Communist Party is identified with the left, and that members of the Communist party are more likely to place themselves on the left. This prediction is tempered, however, by previous research which suggests that while party members are more likely to endorse authoritarian views, the ideological preferences of party members and non-party members are broadly similar (Wu 2019; Wu and Meng 2016).…”

“…What meanings do we expect the left and right labels to carry under an authoritarian regime? Many dictators come to power on the strength of social movements which are bound together by left-wing or right-wing ideals (Schurmann 1968), but once they have established themselves in office, the absence of a political alternative allows them to lay claim to the center of the policy space and to rule by relying on their valence advantages, rather than on their ideological brand (Schofield and Levinson 2008; Wu 2019).…”

When Left Is Right and Right Is Left: The Psychological Correlates of Political Ideology in China

“…Hence Pan and Xu define the ideological spectrum in China as ranging from the "conservative left" to the "liberal right." (This classification prioritizes the economic divide between left and right [see also Wu, 2019], which is more similar worldwide than divides on political philosophy and social/cultural issues; the economic divide focuses on equality versus inequality, the content-laden side of the equality/change versus hierarchy/stasis dichotomy, while change versus stasis is non-directional or content-free; . On economic issues, the Chinese left is more similar to U.S. liberals, although with a much greater acceptance of government economic intervention (closer to socialists in the United States); the Chinese right is similar to center-right liberals and conservatives in their embrace of capitalism.…”

A Model Study of Strategies for Optimizing the Educational Environment and Enhancing Student Engagement in Civics and Political Science Courses

“…At the same time, under the wave of the new media era, the ideological and political courses in colleges and universities are facing unprecedented opportunities and challenges, and the content innovation of the ideological and political courses and the enhancement of student participation has become an essential issue in the field of higher education [5]. On the one hand, the new media environment provides a broader practical platform and resources for the Civic and Political Science Program in colleges and universities, so the traditional teaching mode is gradually changing to a more flexible and diversified interactive learning mode [6]. In this context, the content innovation of the Civic and Political Science courses is not only the updating of the knowledge system but also the innovation of teaching methods and means [7].…”

“…Shanshan Zou. Applied Mathematics and Nonlinear Sciences, 9(1) (2024)[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] …”