{"id":2334,"date":"2026-07-21T22:01:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T22:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/apsa2026\/?page_id=2334"},"modified":"2026-07-23T12:15:28","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T12:15:28","slug":"2026-mini-conferences","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/apsa2026\/2026-mini-conferences\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 Mini-Conferences"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\"><strong>2026 Mini-Conferences<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Mini-conferences at the APSA Annual Meeting consist of a full day of sessions devoted to a specific theme. Each mini-conference is designed to support a larger cohesive outcome than traditional panels, such as an edited volume or an omnibus dataset.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:15px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"font-size:18px\">Use the\u202f<a href=\"https:\/\/convention2.allacademic.com\/one\/apsa\/apsa26\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>2026 Online Program<\/strong><\/a><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">\u202f<\/span>to view mini-conference panel details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:22px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;autoclose&quot;: true, &quot;accordionItems&quot;: [] }\" data-wp-interactive=\"core\/accordion\" role=\"group\" class=\"wp-block-accordion is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-is-layout-flow\">\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-31&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: true }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-open is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-colibri-color-5-color has-text-color has-background has-link-color has-medium-font-size wp-elements-7487639b25fed9a8d3eb4da07316e48c\" style=\"background-color:#1f5d84;font-style:normal;font-weight:700\"><button aria-expanded=\"true\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-31-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-31\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><strong>Chinese Politics Mini-Conference (Saturday, September 5)<\/strong><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-31\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-31-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Sponsored by Division 13: Politics of Communist and Former Communist Countries<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Since its inception in 2016, the Chinese Politics Mini-Conference has facilitated connections and community building across the Chinese politics field. In the 2026 mini-conference, which marks its eleventh anniversary, we build on the existing tradition by featuring a set of theoretically and methodologically diverse papers, presented by scholars across ranks and global academic affiliations. The research presented at this conference will focus on issues in domestic politics, drawing on historical, contemporary, and emerging phenomenon to make sense of Chinese politics today.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The mini-conference will also include a lunch session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;autoclose&quot;: false, &quot;accordionItems&quot;: [] }\" data-wp-interactive=\"core\/accordion\" role=\"group\" class=\"wp-block-accordion is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-is-layout-flow\">\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-6&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\" style=\"font-style:normal;font-weight:700\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-6-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-6\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><strong>Elite Governance and State Strategies in Imperial and Socialist China<\/strong><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-6\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-6-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Saturday, September 5, 8:00am \u2013 9:30am&nbsp;<br>Created Panel&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Participants<\/strong>:&nbsp;<br>(Chair) Shuai Jin, UMASS Boston&nbsp;<br>(Discussant) Yuhua Wang, Harvard University<br>(Discussant) Yue Hu, Tsinghua University&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Session Description:<\/strong>&nbsp;<br>This panel examines the evolution of Chinese governance, social order, and cultural legitimacy from the Qing Dynasty through the contemporary era. The collective research explores how central authorities\u2014whether imperial monarchs or the modern party-state\u2014manage elite power-sharing, minority rule, social stability, and gendered labor dynamics during periods of intense institutional transition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Yang paper challenges the idea that China\u2019s first representative institutions, the provincial assemblies (Ziyi Ju) of 1909, were merely symbolic. Yang argues that Empress Dowager Cixi granted these assemblies significant powers, such as taxation and oversight, not because of pressure from emerging elites, but as a strategic counterweight to provincial governors who had gained excessive power after the 1901 Boxer Rebellion. The research highlights a &#8220;counterbalancing pathway&#8221; to parliamentarization where monarchs empower legislatures to contain their own agents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Nong paper, focusing on the White Lotus Rebellion, investigates why some civil conflicts are more prone to recur than others. Nong argues that the social embeddedness of militias is the deciding factor: militias composed of jobless drifters are more likely to cause unrest after demobilization because they lack community ties. Conversely, militias drawn from local populations face higher opportunity costs for renewed fighting, suggesting that social ties are essential for maintaining post-conflict order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Cheng paper explores how the Manchu minority maintained rule over the Han majority through &#8220;managed partial assimilation&#8221;. By tracking &#8220;boundary-spanning&#8221; Manchu officials who adopted Han-style courtesy names, the study shows that these partially assimilated elites were strategically deployed to challenging locales. To prevent these officials from becoming too embedded or losing their Manchu identity, the state used frequent personnel rotation across civil and military posts, balancing local effectiveness with central loyalty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Xiao &amp; Gao research addresses the &#8220;puzzling&#8221; decline of female employment in China despite its economic prosperity since the 1990s. The authors argue that the dismantling of the danwei (work unit) system\u2014which previously provided social security and domestic support\u2014disproportionately burdened women. This negative effect was most severe in areas where the socialist legacy was most entrenched, such as regions developed during the Third Front Campaign, demonstrating that the market transition&#8217;s impact on gender equality is path-dependent and spatially uneven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Wang &amp; Sheen paper examines why the Chinese state permits and even promotes blockbusters featuring defiant heroes. The authors argue the regime utilizes &#8220;curated defiance,&#8221; allowing narratives where protagonists rebel against corrupt or &#8220;premodern&#8221; authorities. As long as the hero ultimately restores a higher collective order (\u5927\u4e49), the state can co-opt the hero&#8217;s victory to reinforce its own moral legitimacy, transforming rebellious energy into moral consent.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Papers<\/strong>:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;autoclose&quot;: false, &quot;accordionItems&quot;: [] }\" data-wp-interactive=\"core\/accordion\" role=\"group\" class=\"wp-block-accordion is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-is-layout-flow\">\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-1&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-1-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-1\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><em>The Origins of Representative Institutions in China<\/em><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-1\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-1-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Qixuan Yang, Yale University<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Under what conditions can a power-sharing parliament emerge when the targeted elite group poses a credible threat? Existing literature suggests that the degree of political concession to parliaments increases (decreases) as the threat of the targeted elites increases (decreases). However, China\u2019s first representative institutions\u2013 provincial assemblies or Ziyi Ju (\u8aee\u8b70\u5c40) elected in 1909 in the Qing dynasty\u2013 received more political concessions than they deserved. Building on a variety of primary and secondary sources, my original Qing Legislator Dataset shows that at least 72% of the 1749 provincial parliamentarians were low-level administrative elites: Men with low administrative qualifications who waited years to be appointed to permanent administrative positions (\u201cdegree-holders without jobs\u201d or \u201cexpectants\u201d) or who served as probationers or assistant officers. Their dominance was neither simply the result of pure status patronage by the Qing Monarch, nor did their dominance lead to a window-dressing parliament under the control of provincial executives. Various policy documents and drafts show that Empress Dowager Cixi granted these assemblies a wide range of powers, from taxation to investigating provincial bureaucrats. She also ensured the provincial assemblies\u2019 organizational and personnel independence from provincial governors. I find that the Qing monarch strategically granted disproportionately greater power to the provincial assemblies in order to constrain provincial governors, who had gained unprecedented power since the Boxer Rebellion of 1901. Theoretically, I argue that Qing parliaments emerged through a counterbalancing pathway in which the extent of parliamentary power is primarily a function of threats from established elites rather than grievances from emerging elites. This paper brings the first Chinese parliaments into comparative legislative studies and contributes to an underexplored pathway of parliamentarization out of autocrat\u2019s strategic considerations to contain her agents.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;autoclose&quot;: false, &quot;accordionItems&quot;: [] }\" data-wp-interactive=\"core\/accordion\" role=\"group\" class=\"wp-block-accordion is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-is-layout-flow\">\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-2&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-2-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-2\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><em>Spoilers of Peace: Pro-Government Militias in China&#8217;s White Lotus War<\/em><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-2\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-2-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Xin Nong, Hitotsubashi University<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Conventional wisdom holds that civil conflicts involving pro-government militias (PGMs) are more likely to recur. We refine this view by arguing that the recurrence of violence depends on the social ties that bind militia members to their communities. Specifically, we distinguish between PGMs composed mainly of jobless drifters and those drawn from local populations. We argue that conflicts involving the latter are less likely to recur because locally recruited militias, bound by family and community ties, face higher opportunity costs of renewed fighting, whereas drifter-based PGMs, lacking such ties, are more prone to remobilization. We test this argument using the case of the White Lotus Rebellion during China&#8217;s Qing dynasty, drawing on unique prefecture-level data constructed using machine learning. A difference-in-differences analysis shows that prefectures with drifter-based PGMs experienced significantly more militia unrest after demobilization than those with locally recruited militias. As a placebo test, we show that militia social ties have no comparable effect on peasant unrest, indicating that the observed dynamics stem from militia behavior rather than general social instability. These findings highlight the role of social embeddedness in shaping post-conflict order and echo Kalyvas&#8217;s claim that civil conflict dynamics are driven by localized actor incentives rather than grand cleavages.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;autoclose&quot;: false, &quot;accordionItems&quot;: [] }\" data-wp-interactive=\"core\/accordion\" role=\"group\" class=\"wp-block-accordion is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-is-layout-flow\">\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-3&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-3-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-3\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><em>Managed Partial Assimilation: Manchu Elites and Minority Rule in the Qing Empire<\/em><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-3\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-3-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Cheng Cheng, New York University<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How do minority rulers govern a numerically dominant majority? In ethnically diverse empires where a minority controls coercive power but rules over a majority with dense pre-existing institutions, rulers face a dual challenge: managing popular resistance from below while maintaining loyalty among coethnic elites at the center. Pure repression is costly and unsustainable, whereas full assimilation into the majority erodes the ethnic boundaries that underpin coethnic support. I argue that minority rulers adopt a strategy of managed partial assimilation: they cultivate a subset of coethnic elites who adopt selected cultural markers of the majority and deploy them to sensitive local posts, while using personnel rotation to preserve their identification with the ruling group. Rather than simply stacking key positions with coethnics or relying on repression alone, rulers selectively empower these \u201cboundary-spanning\u201d intermediaries and tightly manage their careers to balance control and local embeddedness. Meanwhile, coethnic elites\u2014seeking career advancement but constrained by in-group pressures\u2014strategically calibrate their visible mixed-ethnicity traits.<br><br>I evaluate this argument in the Qing dynasty of China. Drawing on an original dataset constructed from the Unofficial Rosters of Government Personnel (commercial jinshenlu published in Beijing between 1746 and 1820), I identify \u201cpartially assimilated\u201d Manchu officials by the presence of a Han-style courtesy name. Courtesy names, absent from official personnel dossiers, appeared in commercial rosters only when an official was widely known by that name in daily life, making them a marker of social assimilation. I show that Manchu officials with recorded courtesy names were systematically assigned to more challenging, higher-reward locales. They were also rotated more frequently across civil, military, and Imperial Household posts and moved more often between central, provincial, and local offices than non-integrated Manchu elites. Robustness checks using placebo tests address concerns about differential information recording in prestigious posts. The findings show how Qing rulers selectively cultivated and tightly managed partially assimilated coethnic elites to stabilize minority rule over a vast Han Chinese majority.<br><br>More broadly, the study contributes to research on ethnic politics, authoritarian power-sharing, and imperial governance by showing that Manchu elite identity management and imperial personnel policy jointly underpin durable minority rule. It highlights partial assimilation and strategic rotation as core behavioral and organizational mechanisms linking elite integration to state capacity and regime stability.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;autoclose&quot;: false, &quot;accordionItems&quot;: [] }\" data-wp-interactive=\"core\/accordion\" role=\"group\" class=\"wp-block-accordion is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-is-layout-flow\">\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-4&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-4-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-4\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><em>Socialist Institutions and Gendered Labor Force Participation<\/em><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-4\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-4-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Weilin Xiao, Tsinghua University; Xinyang Gao, Peking University<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How do socialist institutions shape gender (in)equality in the labor market? Women\u2019s labor force participation is inextricably linked to economic growth, political development, and the advancement of peace. However, the gendered consequences of the post-communist reversal of socialist institutional legacies remain unclear. Efforts to promote gender equality are widely regarded as one of the least controversial achievements of Mao ZeDong, whose quote \u201cwomen hold up half the sky\u201d was widely promoted in communist China (1950s-70s). It is puzzling that the period since the 1990s has witnessed both China\u2019s economic prosperity and a decline in female employment\u2014a pattern which contradicts the expectations of modernization theory. This article investigates the historical origins of the heterogeneous effects of market transition on gender inequality in post-communist China.<br><br>The existing literature overlooks the dynamic relationship between state and society and assumes a unitary state entity\u2014an often-untenable premise. Instead, our analysis shifts the focus to the regionally uneven nature of politico-economic transition in post-communist countries. We argue that regime dynamics (i.e., state entry\/exit) give rise to imbalanced subnational reactions, thereby producing heterogeneity in the effects of market transition. We test this theory in the context of China. We contend that the gendered consequences of China\u2019s marketization reform in the 1990s are driven by the state\u2019s strategic withdrawal from social provisioning, a process that varies geographically according to the intensity of the pre-reform socialist legacy (i.e., welfare system). Specifically, the dismantling of the danwei (work unit) system triggered by the reform, which previously embedded the state into society (including the family) and provided institutionalized social security and domestic support, disproportionately burdened women in areas where the state\u2019s presence was most entrenched, forcing them to retreat from the public sphere (especially labor market).<br><br>Utilizing an original county\/city-level panel dataset derived from census microdata between 1982 and 2000, we exploit sub-national variations in socialist danwei system and employ an intensity difference-in-differences (DID) approach to estimate the causal impact of socialist institutions on the female-to-male labor force participation ratio. To address endogeneity, we leverage the Third Front Campaign (1960s-70s) as a natural experiment. This campaign created an industrial base in the destination locations and a danwei system to provide a range of welfare benefits to employees, whose relocation decision was primarily based on the locality\u2019s defensibility, but had little to do with socioeconomic or cultural conditions. Based on an archival list of third front cities and regions, we apply instrumental variable (IV) and regression discontinuity (RD) designs to isolate exogenous variation in the penetration of socialist institutions.<br><br>Our findings demonstrate that the marketization shock significantly reduced female labor force participation relative to men, and this negative effect was substantially larger in localities with a deeper socialist institutional penetration. Concurrently, this shift also precipitated gendered political consequences. These results challenge the linear assumptions of classic modernization theory, suggesting instead that gender equality trajectories in post-communist countries are recursive and path-dependent. These findings also challenge the assumptions of a uniform market transition, highlighting how the spatial unevenness of state retrenchment produces divergent gendered consequences.<br><br>This article offers four main contributions to the literature. First, by highlighting how the collapse of state-mandated institutional support generates spatial disparities in gender inequality, this study contributes to the political economy of gender and the comparative politics of the welfare state. Second, this study engages with the literature on the \u201cbringing the state back in\u201d tradition and new institutionalism by demonstrating how state dynamics and historical institutions structure the winners and losers of market transition. Third, this study complements the literature on the political and socio-economic consequences of the market transition by examining its gender dimensions. Fourth, this study on post-communist China enriches the nuanced understanding of the legacy of socialism (and its reversal). China\u2019s experience holds broader insights for understanding transitions in other post-communist contexts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-5&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-5-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-5\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><em><em>Curated Defiance: Moralized Authoritarianism and Politics of Legitimacy<\/em><\/em><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-5\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-5-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><em>Frances Yaping Wang, Colgate University; Greg Chih-Hsin Sheen, Institute of Political Science, Academia Sinica<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><br>Why do authoritarian regimes tolerate\u2014and often promote\u2014mass-market films that glorify defiant heroes? Contemporary China features wildly popular stories of righteous rebellion\u2014Ne Zha defying the celestial order, Sun Wukong rebelling against Heaven, Mulan transgressing patriarchal authority, or the Shuihu Zhuan bandits rising against corrupt officials. The puzzle is not merely their endurance but their political permissibility under a regime known for stringent ideological control. We argue that rulers cultivate curated defiance: narratives in which protagonists defeat illegitimate authorities only to restore a higher collective order. This strategy draws on a people-first moral logic (\u5927\u4e49) that distinguishes righteous resistance from system-threatening dissent. By allowing heroes to confront corrupt, premodern, foreign, or local rogue authorities\u2014while pivoting back to order restoration\u2014the state can co-claim the hero\u2019s victory and reinforce its own moralized legitimacy. Using an original dataset of Chinese blockbusters (2005\u20132025), coded for target type, narrative \u201cloyalty pivot,\u201d and ending frames, paired with state-media paratexts and distribution outcomes, we show that \u201cdefiant-hero\u201d films are most likely to be approved and amplified when they attack non-contemporary authorities and conclude with moral restoration\u2014especially during governance and anti-corruption campaigns. A small cross-national probe suggests similar patterns in other people-first authoritarian settings. The project advances theories of authoritarian legitimation by demonstrating how regimes transform rebellious affect into moral consent. Rather than suppressing defiance, moralized authoritarianism ritualizes it, extending explanations of authoritarian resilience beyond performance and repression to the realm of narrative rule.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-12&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\" style=\"font-style:normal;font-weight:700\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-12-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-12\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><strong>Political Communication and Public Opinion in China<\/strong><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-12\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-12-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Saturday, September 5, 9:45 \u2013 11:15am<br>Created Panel<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Participants<\/strong>:&nbsp;<br>(Chair) Xiaoxiao Shen, Northeastern University<br>(Discussant) Jiahua Yue, Duke Kunshan University<br>(Discussant) Xiaonan Wang, CUNY Baruch College<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Session Description:<\/strong>&nbsp;<br>This panel brings together five innovative papers that collectively advance our understanding of political communication and public opinion in contemporary China. The papers examine how information environments, digital technologies, and institutional change shape political attitudes, preference expression, and regime legitimacy under authoritarian and hybrid conditions. Rather than focusing narrowly on propaganda or censorship, the panel highlights how political communication operates through cross national digital spillovers, artificial intelligence, institutional signals, social influence, and nationalist framing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As China\u2019s political communication environment becomes increasingly embedded in global digital systems, new forms of persuasion, comparison, and interpretation emerge, often with unintended political consequences. This panel addresses key questions such as how digital regulation and AI generated messaging affect public opinion across regime boundaries, how citizens interpret political cues under censorship and social pressure, and how the Chinese state adapts communicative strategies to sustain legitimacy amid institutional and ideological change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Several papers examine state led political communication in comparative and international perspective. Yingdan Lu, Rongbin Han, Lizhi Liu, and Li Shao analyze how democratic regulation of digital platforms can inadvertently benefit authoritarian regimes, showing how cross platform interactions following the 2025 United States TikTok ban produced humanization effects among American users while reinforcing regime legitimacy among Chinese users. Jing Luo and Haifeng Huang provide the first systematic comparison of United States and China developed artificial intelligence models in international political messaging, demonstrating how differences in training information environments shape the persuasiveness of AI generated communication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Other contributions focus on citizen attitudes and expression amid weakening institutional constraints and advancing autocratization. Mingcong Pan, Yiqing Xu, and Shane Xuan examine public opinion following China\u2019s removal of presidential term limits, revealing strong support for institutional constraints and a preference for policy moderation despite institutional erosion. Jia Li investigates preference falsification in Hong Kong during political realignment, showing how social desirability, fear of repression, and perceived peer behavior interact to produce gradual cascades of misrepresentation rather than immediate silence. Mingpu Xiao examines how the Chinese state has rebuilt legitimacy for the state-owned economy by reframing it as a nationalist project, demonstrating how nationalist cues serve as cognitive shortcuts that sustain support for state ownership despite limited economic knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Methodologically, the panel integrates large scale text analysis, digital ethnography, survey and conjoint experiments, causal inference, and qualitative content analysis. Together, the papers offer a nuanced and empirically grounded account of how political communication shapes public opinion in contemporary China and beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Papers<\/strong>:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;autoclose&quot;: false, &quot;accordionItems&quot;: [] }\" data-wp-interactive=\"core\/accordion\" role=\"group\" class=\"wp-block-accordion is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-is-layout-flow\">\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-7&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-7-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-7\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><em>How Digital Regulation in Democracies Can Unintentionally Benefits Autocracies<\/em><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-7\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-7-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Yingdan Lu, Northwestern University; Rongbin Han, University of Georgia; Lizhi Liu, Georgetown University; Li Shao, Zhejiang University<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Existing scholarship has long conceptualized global digital governance as a binary divide between an \u201copen\u201d internet led by democracies and a \u201cclosed\u201d one controlled by authoritarian regimes. However, in recent years, democracies have begun to regulate their once-free digital environments to counter disinformation and foreign influence, while autocracies have moved toward selective openness and subtler forms of information control. Few studies have examined the consequences of such shifts, especially their spillover effects: how domestic digital regulations in one regime can inadvertently shape perceptions and legitimacy in another. This paper addresses this gap by examining the 2025 U.S. TikTok ban and the ensuing migration of U.S. TikTok users to the Chinese platform RedNote. Using a mixed-method design that combines LLM-supported text analysis of 80,364 social media posts and approximately 180 hours of multi-location, real time digital ethnography, we find that the ban-triggered interactions between U.S. and Chinese users unexpectedly benefited the Chinese state. Specifically, they (1) fostered humanization effects among U.S. users, transforming China from an abstract geopolitical adversary into a community of relatable and friendly individuals, and (2) enhanced regime legitimacy among Chinese users, whose engagements with U.S. users in comparing everyday livelihood indirectly portrayed the Chinese state as capable and benevolent. Our findings highlight how digital regulations in democracies may bear unintentional implications for rival regimes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-8&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-8-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-8\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><em><em>AI in International Messaging: Comparative Evidence from China and the U.S.<\/em><\/em><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-8\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-8-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><em>Jing Luo, Ohio State University; Haifeng Huang, Ohio State University<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Can artificial intelligence (AI) produce persuasive political messaging? Despite intensifying U.S.-China competition in AI, little research compares the persuasiveness of their models, particularly in international political communication. This paper argues that differences in training information environments shape effectiveness of AI-generated messages: U.S. models, trained in a freer information system, produce richer, evidence-based arguments and therefore generate more persuasive political messages.<br><br>To test this claim, we leverage leading AI models: two U.S.-developed systems (GPT and Gemini) and two Chinese counterparts (DeepSeek and Qwen), to generate external political messages of the U.S. and Chinese governments targeting foreign audiences. We then conduct a series of survey experiments involving American and Chinese participants, comparing the persuasive effect of these AI-generated messages. To further capture the causal effect of the training information environment, we fine-tune a RoBERTa-based classifier to estimate a censorship score for each AI-generated message. With this data, we employ a two-stage least squares approach to examine its causal effect on message persuasiveness.<br><br>This project provides the first comparative evidence on the persuasive power of U.S. and Chinese AI-generated political communication. Although AI architectures and training procedures remain a blackbox, our post hoc operationalization of censorship score offers a credible strategy for isolating the causal effect of the information environment. Theoretically, the project contributes to research on China\u2019s censorship and strategic information control. More broadly, it advances scholarship on AI and modern statecraft, by illustrating how AI-powered political communication shapes public diplomacy, propaganda, and global political discourse.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-9&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-9-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-9\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><em><em>Political Preferences amid Weakening Institutional Constraints<\/em><\/em><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-9\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-9-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><em>Mingcong Pan, University of Wisconsin Madison; Yiqing Xu, Stanford University; Shane Xuan, University of California San Diego<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some authoritarian regimes with significant institutional constraints on power have recently seen these limits weaken, yet little is known about how citizens view such changes. Using China\u2019s removal of presidential term limits as a case, we design and implement a variant of the conjoint experiment to systematically examine multidimensional policy preferences and support for institutional constraints of citizens under authoritarianism. Combining nonparametric estimation with structural modeling of respondents\u2019 preferences, we find that Chinese respondents favor moderate over extreme policies, with the strongest intensity of preference for moderate positions, and that they support constraints such as presidential term limits and age limits for officials. Our study advances understanding of public opinion during major institutional change and introduces methodological innovations for studying it in restrictive, authoritarian contexts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-10&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-10-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-10\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><em><em>Lying Low in Line: Cascade of Preference Falsification amid Autocratization<\/em><\/em><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-10\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-10-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><em>Jia Li, Utah State University<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Citizens under autocratic rule often falsify political preferences. But do they immediately shift toward falsification at the onset of autocratization? I argue that citizens do not uniformly adjust political expression, and social desirability bias can be as important as fear of repression in shaping the tendency to falsify. This paper presents a survey on voter turnout and demonstration participation in Hong Kong\u2014a polity undergoing a major institutional overhaul and political realignment toward autocracy. The survey incorporates vignette treatments, list experiments, and a probe for sponsorship effects. Evidence suggests preference falsification by both government and opposition supporters, yet they do so in distinct ways. Government supporters over-report their intention to vote, while opposition supporters do not conceal turnout intention; neither group misrepresents their tendency to demonstrate. Further, using vignettes that frame an election postponement differently, I find that a propaganda message induces government supporters to over-report their turnout intention, while an intimidating message makes opposition supporters under-report their turnout and protest intentions. The survey reveals a mechanism of the influence of presumed influence: government supporters over-report their turnout and demonstration intentions when they believe more of their peers will take action to support the government; and vice versa for opposition supporters. These findings stress that citizens\u2019 shift toward falsification does not happen overnight but takes shape in an information cascade. Also importantly, a pro-government social desirability bias may form to induce falsification by government supporters, as fear of repression simultaneously compels opposition supporters to refrain from truthful expression.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-11&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-11-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-11\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><em><em>Chinese Socialism 2.0: How Nationalism Drives Support for State-Owned Economy<\/em><\/em><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-11\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-11-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><em>Mingpu Xiao, University of California, San Diego<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This paper examines why Chinese citizens support the state-owned economic system through a mixed-method research design. It argues that since the state-owned enterprise (SOE) reforms of the early 2000s, the Chinese government has actively rebuilt the legitimacy of the state-owned economy by reframing it as a nationalist symbol through education and propaganda. Constrained by limited economic knowledge, ordinary citizens often rely on these nationalist heuristics, viewing SOEs as guardians of national interests and global status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This study presents three empirical tests. First, qualitative content analysis of high school curricula and automated text analysis of official newspapers offer direct evidence of how the state has strategically embedded pro-SOE narratives into the construction of national identity. Second, drawing on multiple waves of nationally representative surveys, it finds that nationalism is among the strongest predictors of public support for state ownership. Third, a novel online survey experiment establishes causal links between economic ignorance, nationalist cues, and supportive attitudes toward the state-owned economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These findings shed light on how post-communist countries, such as China, can adaptively fuse seemingly contradictory ideologies to cultivate popular legitimacy in an era of economic reform and the global resurgence of nationalism.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-18&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\" style=\"font-style:normal;font-weight:700\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-18-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-18\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><strong>Cadre Control and Central-Local Politics<\/strong><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-18\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-18-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Saturday, September 5, 11:30am \u2013 1:00pm<br>Created Panel<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Participants<\/strong>:&nbsp;<br>(Chair) Adam Y. Liu, National University of Singapore<br>(Discussant) Edmund W. Cheng, City University of Hong Kong&nbsp;<br>(Discussant) Hao Zhang, New York University&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Session Description:<\/strong>&nbsp;<br>This panel shows how political authority in China is exercised through both formal and informal institutions. Across elite governance and state\u2013society relations, the papers reveal the micro-mechanisms that align incentives and behavior across different levels of the party-state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><br>Songpo Yang demonstrates how officials\u2019 emotional displays function as signals of effort and loyalty: senior leaders project calm authority, while lower-level cadres perform diligence and stress, with clear career rewards for mastering these unwritten norms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><br>Jonathan Elkobi argues that ideological work coordinates rather than converts. Politburo study sessions and Party School training signal leadership priorities and align elite interpretations, enabling officials to act in step with central goals without changing private beliefs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><br>Jing Zheng and Kaiping Zhang show that personnel rotation structures political careers. Through cadre exchange, the party engineers distinct career paths with unequal promotion prospects, using organizational design to cultivate and select local leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><br>Xinzhuo Huang and Yongshun Cai analyze how central pressure to curb petitioning produces divergent local responses. Using cadre performance evaluation and policing data reveal who petitions, why, and how local governments deploy varied control strategies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><br>Ruilin Lai shows that judicial repression deters dissent through signaling. In Hong Kong, courts fail to compel defendants but successfully discourage broader publics from opposing the regime, highlighting law as a tool of authoritarian control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Papers<\/strong>:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;autoclose&quot;: false, &quot;accordionItems&quot;: [] }\" data-wp-interactive=\"core\/accordion\" role=\"group\" class=\"wp-block-accordion is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-is-layout-flow\">\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-13&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-13-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-13\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><em>Disciplined Face of Power: Affective Signaling and Hierarchical Rule in China<\/em><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-13\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-13-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Songpo Yang, Peking University<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Existing theories of authoritarian durability focus on formal institutions of control, such as personnel management and propaganda, largely overlooking the informal behavioral norms that sustain elite cohesion. This paper argues that authoritarian control is sustained, in part, through a pervasive regime of &#8220;bureaucratic affect&#8221;\u2014a set of unwritten yet strictly enforced norms governing the emotional expressions of political elites. We posit that these affective norms solve a critical principal-agent problem: emotional discipline serves as a credible signal of an official\u2019s effort, reliability, and political conformity within an information-scarce hierarchy. To test this theory, I apply deep learning to an original dataset of over 20,000 video appearances of Chinese officials. My findings reveal a clear affective hierarchy consistent with a principal-agent dynamic. First, higher-ranking officials (principals) consistently display greater emotional calmness, embodying the &#8220;face of the state.&#8221; Second, lower-ranking officials (agents) strategically display context-appropriate emotions\u2014such as greater stress in high-pressure roles\u2014to signal their effort and diligence. Finally, preliminary analysis shows that mastering this affective signaling correlates with positive career trajectories, suggesting it is a rewarded, informal criterion for political survival. These findings reveal a critical micro-foundation of hierarchical political control, demonstrating how affective regulation enhances state capacity and elite cohesion.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;autoclose&quot;: false, &quot;accordionItems&quot;: [] }\" data-wp-interactive=\"core\/accordion\" role=\"group\" class=\"wp-block-accordion is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-is-layout-flow\">\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-14&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-14-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-14\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><em>The Logic of Ideological Work in Autocracies<\/em><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-14\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-14-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Jonathan Elkobi, Yale University<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How does ideological work shape elite behavior in authoritarian regimes? Existing research typically emphasizes indoctrination or coercion, yet contemporary authoritarian institutions\u2014especially in China\u2014rely heavily on routine ideological practices whose behavioral effects remain poorly understood. I argue that ideological work operates through two complementary mechanisms: signaling, which publicly communicates leadership priorities, and interpretive alignment, which provides elites with a shared conceptual framework for understanding and acting on those priorities. These mechanisms allow the regime to coordinate elite behavior even without changing private beliefs.<br><br>I evaluate this argument using two distinct empirical settings inside the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). First, I examine Politburo study sessions, where top leaders receive ideological instruction directly from Xi Jinping. Second, I analyze municipal Party School training, which provides formal ideological education to mid-level elites. I construct two original datasets to support these analyses: (1) a meeting\u2013activity panel linking all 244 Politburo meetings from 2012\u20132025 to roughly 45,000 documented activities of Politburo members and provincial Party secretaries, and (2) a city-level panel combining environmental outcomes with administrative histories of Party School participation. Topic classifications are produced using a large language model trained on meeting summaries and manually validated.<br><br>Using panel regressions with fixed effects, I show that ideological work consistently shifts elite behavior. Study sessions generate robust signaling effects: after a session emphasizing a given topic, both Politburo members and non-participating provincial secretaries increase their activities on that topic. Participants display an additional\u2014though smaller\u2014behavioral increase, consistent with interpretive alignment. In the municipal setting, officials currently enrolled in Party School exhibit stronger behavioral responses than those with only past ideological training, indicating that real-time signaling heightens interpretive alignment. These results remain stable after accounting for topic salience, portfolio responsibilities, and alternative explanations.<br><br>The findings also speak to theories of preference falsification and ideological compliance. Ideological work affects behavior even when it does not change underlying beliefs: by providing common interpretive cues, it enables elites to act strategically \u201cas if\u201d they endorse the regime\u2019s goals. This reframes ideological routines not as attempts to manufacture sincere conviction but as institutional tools that facilitate elite coordination.<br><br>Overall, the paper shows that ideological work structures expectations, aligns interpretations, and supports smooth leadership transitions. By shaping how elites understand and respond to political priorities, ideological work enhances the CCP\u2019s capacity to govern and strengthens the durability of authoritarian rule.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;autoclose&quot;: false, &quot;accordionItems&quot;: [] }\" data-wp-interactive=\"core\/accordion\" role=\"group\" class=\"wp-block-accordion is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-is-layout-flow\">\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-15&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-15-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-15\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><em>Organizational Cultivation and Cadre Promotion in China<\/em><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-15\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-15-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Jing Zheng, Tsinghua University; Kaiping Zhang, Tsinghua University<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In authoritarian regimes, political officials play a central role in policy implementation, political control, and regime durability. Existing explanations of cadre promotion have largely focused on individual capability and personal connections, overlooking a fundamental institutional reality: officials\u2019 career trajectories are systematically shaped by the ruling party\u2019s personnel management strategy rather than individual choice. Under the principle of Party control over personnel, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) governs officials\u2019 careers through institutionalized mechanisms such as the cadre exchange system, using coordinated job rotations to cultivate, observe, and select cadres over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By incorporating cadre exchange into the analysis of official promotion, this paper addresses a central gap in the literature and asks two related questions: what types of appointment patterns emerge under the cadre exchange system, and how do different career paths shape officials\u2019 promotion prospects? Focusing on County Party Secretaries (CPS), the top political leaders at the county level, the study analyzes variation in appointment patterns within an institutionalized framework of rotation and reassignment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The paper advances an institutional perspective by examining cadre exchange along two dimensions. Administrative mobility captures the scope and direction of movement across administrative hierarchies and jurisdictions, while departmental experience reflects the distribution of posts across Party and government institutions and represents cadres\u2019 capability structure. Different combinations of these dimensions generate distinct appointment patterns that embed cadres in varied institutional environments and shape their developmental trajectories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Empirically, the study draws on an original dataset tracking the full career trajectories of 323 County Party Secretaries in Province S from 2000 to 2020. Using machine learning techniques\u2014specifically K-means clustering\u2014the paper identifies four recurring career patterns: the assigned transfer type, the assigned party-government type, the local transfer type, and the local party-government type. Regression analyses show that these patterns are systematically associated with different promotion outcomes. Compared to cadres following the local transfer trajectory, those in the assigned party-government and assigned transfer types enjoy a significant advantage in subsequent career development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By shifting attention from individual attributes to institutionalized career design, this paper contributes an organizational perspective on promotion in authoritarian regimes. It demonstrates how Party-led personnel management structures differentiated career paths through cadre exchange and how these patterned trajectories generate unequal promotion prospects. Based on a unique and original dataset, the findings provide systematic evidence of how institutional arrangements shape officials\u2019 careers under Party control over personnel.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;autoclose&quot;: false, &quot;accordionItems&quot;: [] }\" data-wp-interactive=\"core\/accordion\" role=\"group\" class=\"wp-block-accordion is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-is-layout-flow\">\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-16&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-16-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-16\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><em>Controlling Petitioning to Beijing<\/em><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-16\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-16-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Xinzhuo Huang, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology; Yongshun Cai, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Controlling petitioning to Beijing has long been one of the most important tasks for local governments in China. Based on a national dataset of county-level performance evaluations by the central government in controlling petitions to Beijing, combined with 1.8 million policing records from Beijing and Shandong provinces between 2019 and 2025, this paper provides a systematic empirical examination of petition control. First, it documents the nationwide heterogeneity in local governments\u2019 performance and identifies the factors behind such variation. Second, by using a locally deployed large language model (LLM) to analyze massive policing data, it examines the demographic characteristics and motivations of citizens who petition to Beijing, demonstrating the micro-foundations of contentious behavior under authoritarianism.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-17&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-17-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-17\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><em>Judicial Repression and Opposition to Autocracy: Evidence from Hong Kong<\/em><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-17\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-17-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Ruilin Lai, Washington University in St. Louis<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Many autocratic governments use the judiciary to suppress political opposition, yet little is known about the effects of this strategy. This study argues that while judicial repression cannot compel its subjects to comply with the regime, it can deter observers from dissenting against the regime. I test this argument in Hong Kong, where thousands of protesters have been tried in courts since the city\u2019s failed democratic uprisings in 2019. Using fine-grained data on more than 3,500 criminal trials in the Hong Kong District and Appellate Courts, I first show that judicial repression fails to compel protesters on trial to act compliantly, whether by pleading guilty or by forgoing appeals. A survey experiment then confirms that judicial repression of protesters effectively deters Hong Kong citizens across the political spectrum from voicing their opposition. The findings have important implications for understanding the motivation behind autocrats\u2019 growing use of judicial repression.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-24&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\" style=\"font-style:normal;font-weight:700\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-24-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-24\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><strong>Policy Processes and Governance Capacity in China<\/strong><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-24\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-24-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Saturday, September 5, 2:15 \u2013 3:45pm<br>Created Panel<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Participants<\/strong>:&nbsp;<br>(Chair) Martin Dimitrov, Tulane University<br>(Discussant) Shiran Victoria Shen, Washington University in St. Louis<br>(Discussant) Meg Rithmire, Harvard University<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Session Description:<\/strong>&nbsp;<br>Papers in this panel collectively trace the lifecycle of policymaking in China. Respectively, they examine how policy paradigms emerge, how central policy signals fragment in local implementation, how policy practices diffuse across regions, how policy experiments discontinue, and how policy categories crystalize into permanent informational infrastructure of the state. Supported by primary data encompassing policy documents, administration records, and fieldwork interviews, these papers contribute empirically to the documentation of various policy regimes in China while deepening theoretical insights about the authoritarian party-state\u2019s policymaking effectiveness, adaptability, and governance power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Pierre Sel\u2019s paper, &#8220;<em>A State and Market Problem: Social Credit through Institutionalist Lenses<\/em>,&#8221; traces the emergence of the much-debated Social Credit System as the outcome of competition between market-led and state-led regulatory paradigms. Using a historical institutionalist approach, it identifies a late-2000s critical juncture that consolidated state-centered governance. The study challenges teleological control narratives and explains how institutional constraints, crises, and ideology shaped a durable informational infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Zijing Zhao and Kaiping Zhang examine policy fragmentation in China\u2019s AI governance. Their paper &#8220;<em>Fragmented Signals: Policy Complexity and Local Drift in China\u2019s AI Governance<\/em>&#8221; conceptualizes policy fragmentation as a multidimensional feature of central policy design. Through computational text analysis, it links fragmented signals to political and economic drift in local implementation. The study demonstrates how ambiguity and conflict enable selective compliance while generating mismatches between national ambitions and local capacities, advancing scalable methods for policy analysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Juncheng Lyu\u2019s paper &#8220;<em>Artificial Proximity: Policy Diffusion in China\u2019s East-West Partnerships<\/em>&#8221; turns to the problem of policy diffusion\u2014specifically, how China\u2019s East-West Partnership program administratively structures policy learning between distant localities. Using text analysis and fieldwork, it shows that institutional pairing drives convergence in industrial policy, public services, and planning beyond poverty alleviation. Embedded cadres act as transmission channels, producing rapid textual diffusion alongside negotiated, uneven implementation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Vincent Brussee asks how policy experiments come to an end. His paper, &#8220;<em>Dead Ends in Chinese Experimental Policy-Making<\/em>,&#8221; conceptualizes \u201cdead ends\u201d as a neglected stage of policymaking in China, where policy experiments stall, redirect, or quietly terminate. Analyzing over 27,000 experiments and financial policy cases, it shows that early stagnation is widespread and structurally patterned. The study reframes policy failure as intrinsic to experimental governance while revealing bureaucratic and incentive-based constraints on adaptation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Finally, Yipeng Zhang examines a specific form of state capacity through policy deployment: China\u2019s hukou system. The paper &#8220;<em>When Residency Status Becomes Boundary: Categorization Capacity in Urban China<\/em>&#8221; develops the concept of \u201ccategorization capacity\u201d to explain how administrative categories become social boundaries. Using subnational variation in China\u2019s hukou system, it shows that routinized policy deployment drives boundary salience and political attitudes. The study specifies a governance channel linking informational infrastructure to lived inequality and citizenship stratification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Together, the panel advances a dynamic, process-oriented understanding of policymaking in contemporary China. Rather than treating policy as a static output, these papers illuminate how policies are generated, interpreted, diffused, stalled, and institutionalized over time. Collectively, they offer a nuanced account of China\u2019s governance capacity, highlighting variation in the effectiveness of policy formulation and implementation that helps explain both the resilience and the limitations of authoritarian policymaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Papers<\/strong>:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;autoclose&quot;: false, &quot;accordionItems&quot;: [] }\" data-wp-interactive=\"core\/accordion\" role=\"group\" class=\"wp-block-accordion is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-is-layout-flow\">\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-19&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-19-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-19\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><em>A State and Market Problem: Social Credit through Institutionalist Lenses<\/em><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-19\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-19-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Pierre Sel, University of Vienna<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Chinese Social Credit System (SCS) is commonly interpreted as an instrument of expanding state control, reflecting the Party-State\u2019s drive to strengthen its grip over society and the market. While this interpretation captures an important dimension of contemporary Chinese governance, it tends to be teleological, treating control as both the starting point and the inevitable outcome of the SCS. This approach furthermore leaves the origins and policy development of Social Credit insufficiently explained. This article asks instead: what political and institutional processes produced the Social Credit System?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Using a historical institutionalist approach, I argue in this article that the development of the Social Credit System is better understood as the outcome of competition between distinct policy paradigms of market regulation. From the late 1990s through the 2000s, two alternative models of Social Credit coexisted and competed. One envisioned a market-led system in which private and corporate actors provided credit assessments and reports. The other promoted a statist and comprehensive model in which the state assumed primary responsibility for information aggregation, credit evaluation, and enforcement. The article examines how these competing approaches interacted and how institutional change unfolded over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Based on new empirical evidence, the article identifies a critical juncture in the late 2000s that decisively favored the state-led model. This shift was driven by three mechanisms: institutional constraints imposed by the predominance of the Party-State and its control over information resources; growing skepticism toward market-based self-regulation, reinforced by domestic governance failures and the 2007\/08 Global Financial Crisis; and an ideological shift toward an expanded role for the state in moral governance in response to a perceived crisis of trust. Together, these dynamics explain the consolidation of a comprehensive, state-led Social Credit System, later formalized in the 2014 national construction outline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The article employs qualitative methods based on the analysis of approximately 300 primary and secondary sources, including academic publications, media articles, books, conference proceedings, and policy speeches. These documents were selected according to the authors\u2019 proximity to and role within the Social Credit policy process, encompassing policy advocates, decision-makers, and informed commentators. The analysis relies on a critical contextualization of these materials combined with qualitative discourse analysis. This approach complements the historical institutionalist framework by tracing how policy paradigms, justifications, and problem framing evolved over time and shaped institutional outcomes. This documentary analysis is further supported by interviews conducted in Beijing with participants in SCS policy making.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;autoclose&quot;: false, &quot;accordionItems&quot;: [] }\" data-wp-interactive=\"core\/accordion\" role=\"group\" class=\"wp-block-accordion is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-is-layout-flow\">\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-20&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-20-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-20\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><em>Fragmented Signals: Policy Complexity and Local Drift in China\u2019s AI Governance<\/em><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-20\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-20-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Zijing Zhao, Tsinghua University; Kaiping Zhang, Tsinghua University<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">China\u2019s governance system has long been characterized as a form of fragmented authoritarianism, in which the central government governs a highly heterogeneous polity through layered delegation, ambiguous mandates, and multiple, often competing, policy objectives. This study develops a systematic measurement framework to examine how central policy signals in the domain of artificial intelligence (AI) are structured and how they are translated, distorted, or selectively implemented by local governments.<br>Building on recent advances in policy text analysis, this study first identifies granular policy items from large-scale collections of central and local policy documents. It then conceptualizes policy fragmentation as a multidimensional feature of policy design, capturing four key dimensions: discursive conflict between development-oriented and contraction-oriented goals; the mixture of policy instruments; ambiguity in policy content and execution responsibility; and fragmentation across issuing agencies. These dimensions are operationalized through computational text analysis applied to both central and local policy documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To assess the consequences of fragmented central policy signals, this study focuses on two downstream effects. Political drift is defined as the divergence between the directional structure of central policy signals and the content of local implementation. This dimension is measured using local Government Work Reports as an authoritative indicator of substantive policy implementation, allowing a distinction between symbolic compliance and genuine policy adoption. Economic drift is defined as the mismatch between the intended industrial orientation of AI policies and local economic or technological capacity. This dimension is examined using data on local industrial structure, AI-related firms, patenting activity, and digital infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This study contributes to the literature in three ways. First, it reconceptualizes policy fragmentation as a measurable, multidimensional characteristic embedded in policy design rather than solely an outcome of implementation failure. Second, it provides a scalable approach for linking policy texts to political and economic outcomes, moving beyond document-count approaches. Third, it offers new insights into whether ambiguity and conflict in central policy signals function as deliberate governance tools or reflect coordination failures. Finally, this study acknowledges its limitations and points to future research on informal signals\u2014such as media narratives, leadership speeches, and government\u2013business interactions\u2014that may help actors navigate fragmented policy environments.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;autoclose&quot;: false, &quot;accordionItems&quot;: [] }\" data-wp-interactive=\"core\/accordion\" role=\"group\" class=\"wp-block-accordion is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-is-layout-flow\">\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-21&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-21-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-21\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><em>Artificial Proximity: Policy Diffusion in China\u2019s East-West Partnerships<\/em><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-21\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-21-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Juncheng Lyu, King\u2019s College London<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Existing literature typically models policy diffusion in China as a function of geographic proximity, economic similarity, or personnel networks. However, these models often overlook the role of top-down institutional engineering in \u201crewiring\u201d horizontal networks. In this paper, I investigate the East-West Partnership (EWP) (\u4e1c\u897f\u90e8\u534f\u4f5c) as an institutional lever creating \u201cartificial proximity\u201d between distant jurisdictions. I argue the EWP functions as a \u201cgovernance tunnel,\u201d transmitting policy templates and administrative standards beyond the scope of immediate poverty aid. I specifically examine whether EWP participation causally increases policy convergence in three governance realms: industrial development, public service standardization, and urban planning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To test this, I combine large-scale textual analysis with extensive fieldwork. Using the PKU Law database, I construct a Policy Similarity Index measuring convergence between paired versus non-paired jurisdictions. I focus on three policy types derived from the partnership\u2019s operations: (1) Industrial Promotion, specifically park management and enterprise subsidies; (2) Public Service Standards, focusing on healthcare protocols and educational curricula; and (3) Land and Urban Planning, particularly regulations concerning land transfer and infrastructure standardization. Utilizing text-mining techniques\u2014specifically Bag-of-Words cosine similarity and TF-IDF measures\u2014I treat diffusion as \u201ctextual learning\u201d where operative clauses in local policies mirror their external partners. I employ a difference-in-differences (DID) framework to test the causal impact of EWP pairing, hypothesizing that participation significantly increases the intensity and breadth of diffusion in these non-poverty realms, overriding traditional geographic and economic barriers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To explain the mechanisms driving this diffusion, I draw on fieldwork conducted in 2024-2025 in Shenzhen\u2019s Futian District and its partnered counties in Guangxi. I identify the Regional Coordination Section (RCS) as the critical intermediary, functioning as a \u201cBridge\u201d transmitting policy templates to the hinterland. Qualitative evidence highlights that diffusion is driven by the physical embedding of Shenzhen cadres into the decision-making bodies of assisted counties. I find this arrangement facilitates diffusion through two distinct channels. First, in industrial policy, rigorous auditing and risk aversion drive local officials to mimic \u201csafe\u201d coastal models, such as the \u201ctwo parks, dual belts\u201d strategy and preferences for state-owned enterprises. Second, in public services, diffusion occurs through professional mentorship, where Shenzhen experts standardize local technical protocols\u2014such as ultrasound reporting templates and stroke center workflows\u2014effectively exporting institutional standards to rural bureaucracies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, while policy text diffuses rapidly, substantive implementation is often shaped by local bargaining. For instance, while local governments adopt external industrial planning texts to secure funding, they often resist long-term social investments that do not yield immediate economic statistics. I argue the EWP represents \u201cmobilizational diffusion,\u201d where the state actively reconfigures peer learning networks. By channeling coastal standards into the hinterland, the EWP reduces \u201cpolicy distance,\u201d though sustainability relies on continued personnel integration. Bridging big-data text analysis and ethnographic observation, this study contributes to the Mini-Conference\u2019s focus on methodological diversity, offering a nuanced view of how China\u2019s internal aid apparatus reshapes the geography of governance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;autoclose&quot;: false, &quot;accordionItems&quot;: [] }\" data-wp-interactive=\"core\/accordion\" role=\"group\" class=\"wp-block-accordion is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-is-layout-flow\">\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-22&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-22-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-22\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><em>Dead Ends in Chinese Experimental Policy-Making<\/em><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-22\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-22-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Vincent Brussee, Leiden University<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Every beginning has an end\u2014but how do policies end? This article introduces the concept of dead ends as a stage in the policy process where implementation of a policy in its current form cannot continue, temporarily or permanently. Dead ends typically lead to termination, rollback, or redirection. It uses computational process tracing on 27,103 policy experiments announced in the People\u2019s Republic of China between 2013 and 2018, combined with two qualitative case studies of financial policies. The article shows that dead ends are a fundamental feature of experimental governance: more than seventy percent of experiments stall within their first year, even if explicit termination is rare. Patterns of dead ends reflect bureaucratic fragmentation, policy complexity, limited early momentum, and misalignment with bureaucratic incentives or socio-economic trends. Altogether, the article provides a framework for analysing how policies end. It also enriches understanding of the adaptive capacity and structural constraints of China\u2019s governance system.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-23&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-23-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-23\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><em>When Residency Status Becomes Boundary: Categorization Capacity in Urban China<\/em><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-23\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-23-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Yipeng Zhang, Tulane University<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How do states turn administrative categories into socially meaningful boundaries? Work on state capacity highlights fiscal, coercive, and informational resources, yet it rarely specifies how such resources are channeled into durable, person-based categorization. I conceptualize categorization capacity as a governance channel that converts informational and bureaucratic resources into a routinized person-based categorization pipeline: one that enables the state to codify categories in rules, maintain them through registries and verification routines, and deploy them through predictable policy linkages that allocate entitlements and impose constraints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I operationalize this concept in China\u2019s hukou system, a paradigmatic categorization infrastructure that structures local membership and access to public services. This paper suggests that when hukou-based categorization capacity is stronger, hukou categories are more likely to align with subjective insider\/outsider boundaries and align with political attitudes that follow those boundaries. The main mechanism operates through deployment. Registration alone does not make hukou socially significant; it becomes a salient boundary when it is repeatedly and predictably invoked across policy domains and when agencies can verify and enforce eligibility with low friction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Empirically, I develop a subnational index of hukou-based categorization capacity at the prefecture-level city level using a harmonized panel of 120 cities from 2014 to 2019 (the post\u20132014 reform era). I build the index by coding city-level policy documents and implementation rules, including hukou reform plans, points-based settlement criteria, resident-permit regulations, and domain-specific eligibility rules for schooling, housing programs, social insurance, and social assistance, along with indicators of registry integration and digitalization. The index separates two components: stock and deployment. Stock measures the density and sophistication of hukou administration and information infrastructure, including specialized offices, standardized procedures, registry integration, interagency data sharing, and routine verification capacity. Deployment measures the extent and automation of hukou-linked policy gating, including the extent to which hukou status conditions determine access to services and whether eligibility checks are embedded within administrative workflows rather than left to ad hoc discretion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I link the city-level index to individual-level survey data on migrants and locally registered residents within a multilevel framework, adjusting for socioeconomic characteristics and city-level context. I test three observable implications of categorization capacity. First, higher capacity is associated with stronger perceived insider\/outsider boundaries. Second, deployment is more strongly associated with boundary perceptions than stock, which primarily operates by enabling consistent deployment. Third, higher capacity is associated with larger local migrant gaps in political trust, perceived fairness, and redistribution preferences. As a mechanism check, I evaluate whether these associations concentrate in domains where deployment is most extensive and among groups most exposed to those domains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The paper contributes to state capacity and authoritarian citizenship debates by specifying and measuring categorization capacity as a channel of governance and by documenting how subnational variation in this channel helps explain when an administrative category becomes a lived social boundary. While the measurement is anchored in the hukou domain, the framework is portable to other person-based categorization regimes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-30&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\" style=\"font-style:normal;font-weight:700\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-30-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-30\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><strong>Political Economy of State\u2013Business Relations in China<\/strong><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-30\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-30-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Saturday, September 5, 4:00 \u2013 5:30pm<br>Created Panel<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Participants<\/strong>:&nbsp;<br>(Chair) Shengqiao Lin, University of Toronto<br>(Discussant) Ling S. Chen, Johns Hopkins University&nbsp;<br>(Discussant) Zeren Li, National University of Singapore&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Session Description:<\/strong>&nbsp;<br>This panel examines the evolving political economy of state\u2013business relations in contemporary China. It brings together large-scale quantitative analysis, archival research, and on-site fieldwork to show how state strategies and firm behavior reshape developmental and political outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Shiwei Fan and Dongbo Shi\u2019s paper, \u201c<em>Rotations of Local Leaders and Mobility of Entrepreneurs in China<\/em>,\u201d shows that leader rotation does not sever informal networks. Instead, entrepreneurs systematically follow transferred officials to new jurisdictions in search of special deals, with this co-movement sharply constrained after the 2013 anti-corruption campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Qianmin Hu\u2019s paper, \u201c<em>Turning the Table: Industrial Upgrading and State\u2013Business Power Reversal<\/em>,\u201d argues that industrial upgrading has flipped traditional state\u2013business power asymmetries. Local governments acting as \u201cstate venture capitalists\u201d compete for scarce strategic emerging industry firms and tolerate opportunistic contract breaches, creating an innovation dilemma for the party-state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Wenyi Lu, Siyuan Fan, and Shangkun Xie, in \u201c<em>Centralization Paradox: How Authoritarian Reforms Reproduce Patronage<\/em>,\u201d theorize a centralization paradox. Judicial recentralization displaces rather than eradicates collusive ties, as politically reliant firms retreat from reformed jurisdictions and re-concentrate investment in provincial capitals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Chengli Wang and Chu Lin in \u201c<em>Red Tourism and the Political Economy of Ideological Resource-Making<\/em>,\u201d conceptualize \u201cideological resources\u201d through the case of red tourism. They find that politically conferred revolutionary heritage initially boosts tertiary growth but locks localities into state-dependent, corruption-prone development paths that crowd out private investment and high-tech upgrading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Finally, in \u201c<em>The Illusion of Foreign Capital: Estimating Round-Trip FDI in China<\/em>,\u201d Nazim Uras Demir, Jiakun Jack Zhang, Samantha A. Vortherms, and Chengyu Fu uncover the scale and consequences of round-trip FDI. They estimate that a substantial share of nominally foreign investors are, in fact, mainland firms routing capital through offshore havens. Reclassifying firms by ultimate ownership, they show that trade-war-induced divestment is concentrated among genuinely foreign multinationals, while round-tripped firms are far more likely to stay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Together, these papers trace how policy shifts, institutional reforms, and firm strategies jointly reshape state\u2013business bargaining and capital mobility, enriching and complicating conventional understandings of China\u2019s political economy.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Papers<\/strong>:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;autoclose&quot;: false, &quot;accordionItems&quot;: [] }\" data-wp-interactive=\"core\/accordion\" role=\"group\" class=\"wp-block-accordion is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-is-layout-flow\">\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-25&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-25-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-25\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><em>Rotations of Local Leaders and Mobility of Entrepreneurs in China<\/em><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-25\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-25-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Shiwei Fan, Central University of Finance and Economics<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This study investigates the dynamic nature of informal institutions and state-business relations in China by examining how the rotation of local political leaders influences the cross-regional mobility of entrepreneurs. While existing literature often conceptualizes social ties as static constructs based on shared origins or schooling, this paper reconceptualizes informal institutions as dynamic relationships cultivated through overlapping tenure that can transcend administrative boundaries. Using a comprehensive dataset covering the period from 1999 to 2018, which combines firm registration records for all registered shareholders with detailed biographical trajectories of prefecture-level Party Secretaries and mayors, we document a systematic co-movement of entrepreneurs with transferred officials. The research exploits the institutional feature of China\u2019s cadre rotation system\u2014designed partly to disrupt local patronage networks\u2014to test the persistence and portability of these informal ties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The empirical analysis employs a two-way fixed effects framework to estimate the impact of official reassignment on shareholder migration. The findings reveal that the rotation of a local leader significantly increases the likelihood of shareholders entering the leader\u2019s new jurisdiction. specifically, the reassignment of an official is associated with a 15 percent increase in shareholder entry into previously untapped cities on average. This co-movement effect exhibits significant heterogeneity: it is more pronounced for Party Secretaries compared to mayors, reflecting the former&#8217;s higher political authority; it is stronger when the official had a longer tenure in the origin city, suggesting that deeper trust requires time to cultivate; and it is intensified when officials are transferred to higher-ranked or economically significant jurisdictions. Furthermore, the study finds that the effect is more than twice as large for officials who were subsequently investigated for corruption, indicating that this mobility is closely linked to rent-seeking behaviors. Notably, the observed co-movement largely disappears following the 2013 anti-corruption campaign, underscoring the role of intensified political oversight in curbing informal networks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To understand the economic motivations behind this migration, the paper further explores the mechanisms of &#8220;special deals&#8221; by linking firm-level outcomes to land transactions, government procurement contracts, and tax records. The analysis provides evidence that co-moving firms benefit from preferential treatment in the destination city. While these firms do not consistently secure land at lower prices, they tend to obtain significantly larger government procurement contracts and enjoy greater tax relief compared to their local counterparts. These advantages are particularly concentrated among firms associated with corrupt officials. In the realm of government procurement, for instance, connected firms tied to investigated officials secured contracts with values approximately 73 percent higher than those of incumbent local firms. Similarly, connected firms benefited from substantial reductions in business and corporate income taxes, suggesting that the &#8220;special deals&#8221; forged in the origin city are effectively ported to the new jurisdiction. Collectively, these results challenge the conventional view that administrative rotation effectively severs local collusion. Instead, the findings highlight the resilience and portability of informal institutions within China&#8217;s political economy. The study demonstrates that state personnel policies shape not only bureaucratic governance but also the geographic allocation of private capital, as entrepreneurs strategically follow powerful officials to preserve access to special deals. By characterizing the specific channels of preferential treatment and the dampening effect of the anti-corruption campaign, this paper contributes to a deeper understanding of how informal political connections distort resource allocation and market competition in transition economies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;autoclose&quot;: false, &quot;accordionItems&quot;: [] }\" data-wp-interactive=\"core\/accordion\" role=\"group\" class=\"wp-block-accordion is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-is-layout-flow\">\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-26&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-26-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-26\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><em>Turning the Table: Industrial Upgrading and State-Business Power Reversal<\/em><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-26\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-26-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Qianmin Hu, Stanford University<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This paper argues that China&#8217;s pursuit of industrial upgrading has reversed the power dynamics and expropriation patterns between local governments and private firms. As China attempts to climb the global value chain and transform into an innovation-driven economy, it is pivoting toward a new developmental model which I call &#8220;State Venture Capitalism.&#8221; In this model, local governments act as venture capitalists, investing state assets in high-risk ventures undertaken by private entrepreneurs. Under intense top-down political pressure to implement national industrial policy mandates, local governments\u2019 unreasonably high demand for firms in Strategic Emerging Industries (SEIs)\u2014combined with the relative scarcity of qualified firms\u2014creates a &#8220;seller&#8217;s market.&#8221; This discrepancy forces the state to cede bargaining power to these firms and tolerate the potential expropriation of state assets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Using mixed methods including ethnography, interviews, and quantitative analyses, this paper documents local governments&#8217; desperate efforts to court desirable firms and their high tolerance towards opportunism, under-delivery, and strategic defaulting by their private partners. Drawing on court cases involving government-business investment contracts between 2006 and 2021, I demonstrate that the reversal in expropriation patterns is driven by the &#8220;Made in China 2025&#8221; policy shock that occurred in 2015. A Difference-in-Differences (DID) analysis reveals a significant increase in firms&#8217; breach of contract against local governments specifically among firms in SEI post-2015. This shift is explained by a geographic mechanism: the intense demand for SEI firms compels officials to recruit firms from a national market rather than locally. Further analysis confirms that firms recruited from outside the jurisdiction have been increasing as a proportion of total number of cases, are significantly more likely to be SEI firms, and have a higher probability of breaching contracts than locally originated firms do. This indicates that the absence of social ties renders local governments more vulnerable to firm expropriation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Overall, these findings suggest an &#8220;innovation dilemma&#8221; facing the Chinese state: to realize its ambition of industrial upgrading and transformation, it must paradoxically tolerate high risks of predation by the very private firms it seeks to cultivate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This research contributes to the literature on several fronts. First, existing work typically assumes the state, especially an authoritarian one, is a dominant predator capable of arbitrary expropriation. This paper challenges this assumption by demonstrating that under certain developmental conditions, an authoritarian regime can become a vulnerable asset-holder, ceding leverage to private business actors to secure their participation. Second, the literature on political connectedness has long emphasized &#8220;Access Guanxi,&#8221; where firms cultivate ties with politicians to obtain protection and benefits. This study proposes a different type of connectedness which I call &#8220;Recruitment Guanxi,&#8221; where government officials proactively form personal ties with private actors in order to recruit firms with whom they have no prior connection.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;autoclose&quot;: false, &quot;accordionItems&quot;: [] }\" data-wp-interactive=\"core\/accordion\" role=\"group\" class=\"wp-block-accordion is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-is-layout-flow\">\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-27&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-27-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-27\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><em>Centralization Paradox: How Authoritarian Reforms Reproduce Patronage<\/em><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-27\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-27-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Siyuan Fan, University of California, San Diego; Shangkun Xie, Renmin University of China; Wenyi Lu, New York University<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Despite formidable enforcement capacity, authoritarian regimes frequently find their centralization reforms yield mixed results. This article theorizes a centralization paradox: reforms intended to curb corruption and strengthen control instead shift power upward and reproduce patronage at higher administrative levels. We advance a novel mechanism of spatial capture, in which politically reliant firms adapt to the loss of local protection by reallocating investment to rebuild patronage ties under newly centralized authority. We locate our theory in China\u2019s 2014 judicial reform, which centralized court authority at the provincial level. Combining a difference-in-differences specification with a shift\u2013share design, we show that politically reliant firms withdrew from reformed jurisdictions and reinvested in provincial capitals, where concentrated authority revitalized patronage. The findings reveal an endogenous limit on centralization reforms: with weak institutions, reforms meant to purge local collusion instead relocate it, reproducing patronage in new political geographies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;autoclose&quot;: false, &quot;accordionItems&quot;: [] }\" data-wp-interactive=\"core\/accordion\" role=\"group\" class=\"wp-block-accordion is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-is-layout-flow\">\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-28&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-28-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-28\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><em>Red Tourism and the Political Economy of Ideological Resource-Making<\/em><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-28\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-28-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Chengli Wang, University of Macau; Chu Lin, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Can ideology-based policy endowments reshape local development paths? This paper examines China\u2019s red tourism program\u2014a central component of its poverty alleviation strategy\u2014through which revolutionary heritage is mobilized as an economic asset and assigned to selected localities. Using a county-level panel from the 2000s and multiple national waves of Red Tourism Zone designation as plausibly exogenous policy shocks, we estimate the local consequences of receiving such an administratively assigned development endowment. We find that designation induces immediate structural adjustment, characterized by a shift toward service-oriented activities and the accelerated exit of legacy production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These short-term gains, however, are accompanied by longer-run tradeoffs. On the one hand, red tourism designation redirects local growth toward a tourism-centered and policy-reliant trajectory, weakening diversification dynamics. Designated counties exhibit lower private investment intensity and greater labor out-migration, particularly in inland and historically disadvantaged regions. On the other hand, the same designation weakens local accountability: red tourism construction is associated with higher levels of cadre corruption and rent-seeking, indicating that ideological resource allocation can amplify governance distortions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By reconceptualizing resource abundance as an administratively constructed endowment rather than a natural condition, this study extends the resource curse literature to the context of place-based development and cultural\u2013political heritage mobilization. More broadly, it contributes to research on local incentives and policy implementation by demonstrating how campaign-style initiatives can deliver visible short-term gains while generating persistent challenges for industrial upgrading and governance capacity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-29&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-29-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-29\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><em>The Illusion of Foreign Capital: Estimating Round-Trip FDI in China<\/em><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-29\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-29-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Nazim Uras Demir, Loyola Marymount University; Jiakun Jack Zhang, University of Kansas; Samantha A. Vortherms, University of California, Irvine; Chengyu Fu, Harvard University<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Amid intensifying U.S.-China rivalry and de-risking pressures, how much divestment activity are we actually seeing from foreign multinational corporations (MNCs) operating in China? It is surprisingly di\ufb00icult to say since much of the recorded \u201cforeign\u201d direct investment (FDI) is mainland Chinese money returning via tax havens like Hong Kong. While the phenomenon of round-tripping is well-established, measuring the volume of \u201cround-trip\u201d capital has eluded scholars because aggregate national statistics of FDI only accounts for where a \u201cforeign\u201d firm is registered rather than its ultimate ownership. We investigate how much \u201cforeign\u201d capital in China is genuinely foreign by distinguishing round-tripped investment\u2014domestic capital returning through offshore intermediaries\u2014from truly foreign-originated investment. This project investigates the true extent of round-trip FDI into China using novel firm-level data, addressing a significant gap in the existing literature. Using data from the Foreign Invested Enterprises in China (FIEC) dataset (Vortherms and Zhang 2024), we deploy a random-forest model to leverage known firm attributes to identify likely round-tripped investors from the universe of registered MNCs. We estimate that between 10\u201330% of nominally foreign-invested firms are round-tripped mainland firms. Reclassifying investors in China by ultimate corporate owners and replicating earlier work on the political economy of divestment yields two results. First, the 2018\u20132019 U.S.-China Trade War increased exits for both round-trip and foreign firms. Second, round-trip firms are significantly less likely than genuinely foreign MNCs to divest when tariff-exposed. Aggregate FDI statistics thus both overstate the scale of MNC exit and underestimate the targeted effect of tariffs on the exit of genuinely foreign MNCs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;autoclose&quot;: true, &quot;accordionItems&quot;: [] }\" data-wp-interactive=\"core\/accordion\" role=\"group\" class=\"wp-block-accordion is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-is-layout-flow\">\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-35&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: true }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-open is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-colibri-color-5-color has-text-color has-background has-link-color has-medium-font-size wp-elements-3ace04c2ccbc0f69545d20c79892e391\" style=\"background-color:#1f5d84;font-style:normal;font-weight:700\"><button aria-expanded=\"true\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-35-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-35\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\"><strong>Department Chairs&#8217; Mini-Conference: &#8220;Strengthening Political Science Departments&#8221; (Friday, September 4)<\/strong><\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-35\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-35-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The third annual APSA Department Chairs\u2019 Mini-Conference provides political science departments with a forum to discuss significant issues affecting the discipline and engage in peer-to-peer collaboration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The mini-conference will take place from 8:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Friday, September 4th. More information about this event can be found on the <a href=\"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/apsa2026\/2026-department-chairs-mini-conference-and-luncheon\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">2026 Department Chairs&#8217; Mini-Conference page<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;autoclose&quot;: false, &quot;accordionItems&quot;: [] }\" data-wp-interactive=\"core\/accordion\" role=\"group\" class=\"wp-block-accordion is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-is-layout-flow\">\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-32&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\" style=\"font-style:normal;font-weight:700\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-32-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-32\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\">Spotlights from the Discipline: Re-Imagining Political Science Departments<\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-32\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-32-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Friday, September 4, 8:00am \u2013 9:15am<br>Roundtable<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Participants<\/strong>:&nbsp;<br>(Chair) Michelle D. Deardorff, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga<br>(Presenter) Andrew P. Cortell, Auburn University at Montgomery<br>(Presenter) Chapman Rackaway, Radford University<br>(Presenter) Anne FB Flaherty, Merrimack College<br>(Presenter) Laurie L. Rice, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Session Description:<\/strong>&nbsp;<br>Higher education has changed drastically in the last two decades, and the future promises even more sweeping changes. The emphasis on measurable outcomes of programs, the forthcoming steep decline of traditional undergraduate students, the decreasing number of tenure track positions, the abrupt decline of federal funding, government assaults on academic freedom, and systemic global challenges to democratic governance have impacted the discipline of Political Science. How are political science departments reconsidering and reimaging their programs to meet these challenges?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This APSA Department Chairs\u2019 roundtable brings together perspectives from four political science departments across the U.S who have recently re-imagined their programs. The roundtable discussion will highlight how a political science department at a regional public comprehensive adapted its curriculum and course structure to increase undergraduate enrollments. Spotlight how another political science program\u2019s intentional use of campus space built student trust and community to improve recruitment and retention. Showcase a political science program at a private regional college who recently led an interdisciplinary program restructuring, as well as hear from another political science program at a regional public comprehensive that responded to an externally mandated program restructuring by building a stronger faculty-student community and developing a more coherent department strategic mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We hope our colleagues\u2019 examples spark a larger conversation on best practices and share avenues that political science departments can take to strengthen and reimage themselves to thrive in the new higher education landscape.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-33&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\" style=\"font-style:normal;font-weight:700\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-33-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-33\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\">Political Science Departments and AI<\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-33\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-33-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Friday, September 4, 10:00 \u2013 11:15am<br>Roundtable<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Participants<\/strong>:&nbsp;<br>(Chair) Taeku Lee, Harvard University<br>(Presenter) Carles Boix, Princeton University<br>(Presenter) Joshua A. Tucker, New York University<br>(Presenter) Brendan Nyhan, Dartmouth College<br>(Presenter) Nathaniel Persily, Stanford University<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Session Description:<\/strong>&nbsp;<br>This roundtable features members of the former APSA President Taeku Lee\u2019s Special Task Force on AI in Political Science. The discussion will focus on the role of AI in political science teaching, research, and the profession.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-class--is-open=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;id&quot;: &quot;accordion-item-34&quot;, &quot;openByDefault&quot;: false }\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initAccordionItems\" data-wp-on-window--hashchange=\"callbacks.hashChange\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-item is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-item-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading has-medium-font-size\" style=\"font-style:normal;font-weight:700\"><button aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"accordion-item-34-panel\" data-wp-bind--aria-expanded=\"state.isOpen\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.toggle\" data-wp-on--keydown=\"actions.handleKeyDown\" id=\"accordion-item-34\" type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle\"><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-title\">APSA Department Chairs&#8217; Mini-Conference Luncheon and Faculty Caf\u00e9<\/span><span class=\"wp-block-accordion-heading__toggle-icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">+<\/span><\/button><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div inert aria-labelledby=\"accordion-item-34\" data-wp-bind--inert=\"!state.isOpen\" id=\"accordion-item-34-panel\" role=\"region\" class=\"wp-block-accordion-panel is-layout-flow wp-block-accordion-panel-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Friday, September 4, 11:30am \u2013 1:30pm<br>Caf\u00e9<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Session Description:<\/strong>&nbsp;<br>The APSA Departments\u2019 Cafe provides a formal setting \u2014 \u201ca caf\u00e9\u201d with multiple areas to sit \u2014 that allows for one-on-one and group discussion, collaboration, and support. Following brief welcome remarks from APSA staff, Department Chairs&#8217; Mini Conference attendees will be able to navigate several areas set up in the meeting room; each table has a placard which displays the topic and the conversation will be facilitated by two hosts. The Departments\u2019 Cafe will conclude with a brief summary from each table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With a wide-range of topics co-facilitated by colleagues from the multitude of types of political science departments, this final session aims to provoke collaborative dialogue and strengthen partnerships between political science departments and APSA.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2026 Mini-Conferences Mini-conferences at the APSA Annual Meeting consist of a full day of sessions devoted to a specific theme. Each mini-conference is designed to support a larger cohesive outcome than traditional panels, such as an edited volume or an omnibus dataset.&nbsp; Use the\u202f2026 Online Program\u202fto view mini-conference panel details.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25307,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2334","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/apsa2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/apsa2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/apsa2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/apsa2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25307"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/apsa2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/apsa2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2334\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/apsa2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}