1. Econometric Model and Results Search Strategies and Results
What does the Communist Party of China Care about the Most? Evidence from Its Official Newspapers
Guangjun Qu, PhD1; Kevin Sylwester, PhD2; Feng Wang, PhD3
1Birmingham-Southern College, 2Southern Illinois University Carbondale, 3Chongqing University
Abstract
Econometric Model and Results
Is the Communist Party of China (the Party, hereafter) a rational decision maker? As the ruling party of the second largest economy in the world, how does the Party prioritize its policy goals? According to text analysis of the articles published on the Party’s official newspapers, we examine the interdependence of the three primary goals of the Party, delivering economic prosperity, cracking down corruption, and maintaining social stability, across 31 provinces in China between 2000 and The evidence indicates that the Party did put delivering economic prosperity before the other two. What comes after economic growth is anticorruption, and maintaining social stability is the least important among the three. Our study helps better understand the survival strategies of an authoritarian regime.
On the basis of the three proxies we employ a variety of econometric techniques to examine the interdependence of the Party’s efforts to deliver economic prosperity, fight corruption, and maintain social stability. Below are the results of the three-stage least squares estimations, and other results are available upon request.
Table 1. Three-stage Least-squares Estimation on the Party's Prioritization
Introduction
The literature has long documented qualitatively that the Party considered delivering economic prosperity as its most urgent policy goal (Dickson, 2016). To stay in power, the Party deals with a variety of other issues as well. For instance, President Hu Jintao advocated in the mid-2000s the building of a Harmonious Society, which was widely accepted as the Party’s response to issues of social injustice and income inequality. In addition, rampant corruption in the public sector has been official acknowledged by the administration of President Xi Jinping and a series of massive anticorruption campaigns have been run since This study aims to quantitatively investigate the Party’s prioritization among the three issues. We focus on the Party’s official newspapers to gauge its policy goals (and/or concerns) on economic growth, anticorruption, and social stability, respectively.
Search Strategies and Results
By searching certain key phrases, we come up with a proxy for the extent to which the Party cares about each issue. Although our search strategy is similar to Glaeser and Goldin (2006) and Ramirez (2014), the fundamental difference is that we focus on the Party’s official newspapers whereas they looked at US newspapers. These official newspapers are the mouthpieces of the Party and serve as one of the core components of its propaganda machine. Therefore, our search results do not gauge public awareness or actual situation of an issue like corruption. Instead, our results approximate the Party’s resolve and efforts to address the issue.
Conclusions
The Party cares about economic growth so much that it is worried about the possible harmful influences of corruption and social instability on growth. Anticorruption comes after promoting growth on the Party’s priority list, and it is only affected by the Party’s economic concerns. Social stability is the least urgent concern among these three. It makes sense given that there is no opposition parties or forces that could immediately challenge the Party’s ruling.
Figure 1. the Party’s Efforts to Deliver Economic Growth Over Three Administrations
Figure 4. Cross-province Variations of the Party’s Efforts to Deliver Economic Growth Over Three Administrations
Figure 5. Cross-province Variations of the Party’s Efforts to Crack Down Corruption Over Three Administrations
Figure 2. the Party’s Efforts to Crack Down Corruption Over Three Administrations
Figure 6. Cross-province Variations of the Party’s Efforts to Maintain Social Stability Over Three Administrations
Figure 3. the Party’s Efforts to Maintain Social Stability Over Three Administrations
References
Dickson, B. (2016). The Dictator's Dilemma: The Chinese Communist Party's Strategy for Survival. Oxford University Press.
Glaeser, E., Goldin, C., (2006). “Corruption and reform: an introduction.” In: Goldin, Claudia, Glaeser, Edward (Eds.), Corruption and Reform: Lessons from America's Economic History. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, pp
Ramirez, C., (2014). Is corruption in China ‘out of control’? A comparison with the US in historical perspective. Journal of Comparative Economics, 42(1),
Contact: Dr. Guangjun Qu