CCP’s resilient – western academics are biased.

The information explosion based on public opinion surveys in China in the past thirty years has left a few cracks in the empirical foundation of some of the classic theories of political science that were first developed in the West with limited firsthand evidence. For example, the classic theory of civic culture was developed from survey data in only five countries—the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and Mexico. Today, the World Values Surveys cover more than eighty countries in all continents with human inhabitation. Among these countries, China stands out as an outlier and does not fit the theoretical predictions of Western political science. As discussed in the above mentioned “surprises”: (1) the Tiananmen protest in 1989 was an anti-reform movement, but it was expected to be a pro-democratic movement; (2) the Chinese regime enjoys strong public support even though many in the West expected it to have collapsed already; (3) social capital in China is among the highest in the world, despite political science’s expectation that its authoritarian political system would produce public distrust; (4) the authoritarian government is (perceived to be) highly responsive while the theory of democracy predicts otherwise; and (5) Chinese citizens are politically active and enjoy a strong feeling of political efficacy even if they are expected to be politically apathetic. One problem in the existing political science literature is the rigid (and black-and-white) definition of democracy. For example, in the rankings of democracy and freedom by Polity25 and Freedom House,26 both highly respected organizations whose annual rankings are widely used in political science teaching and research, China has been consistently ranked at the very bottom in terms of freedom and democracy. Yet in the World Values Survey in 2012, more than 60 percent of Chinese respondents said they felt free, which was higher than in many democracies. Yes, the Chinese may have extremely low expectations, but they do feel free, and that feeling matters because unhappy citizens can cause political disruption. The problem of measurement error is not only limited to China. In fact, when comparing the subjective feelings in public opinion surveys with the “objective” measures of democracy in the rankings assigned by Polity and Freedom House, public opinions throughout the world show a negative correlation with the democracy rankings. This negative relationship between the subjective and the “objective” measures of democracy can be clearly seen in the chart below, based on the Global Barometer Surveys (2010–2015) covering more than seventy countries and regions. The respondents in these surveys were asked about their opinions regarding the following six questions related to the levels of subjective democracy in their societies: (1) The level of democracy is very high in my country; (2) The democratic system in my country is functioning very well; (3) Ordinary people in my country can freely express their opinions; (4) I trust the media in my country; (5) My government responds to what people need; and (6) I am satisfied with my government’s performance. These six items are combined into a single index of subjective democracy. When this index is compared to the Polity scores of “objective” democracy in these same countries and regions, the correlation coefficient is a statistically significant –0.51! In other words, democratic citizens feel less democracy and freedom in their societies than authoritarian citizens. One way to solve the inconsistency between the subjective and “objective” measures is to slightly stretch the concepts in the political science literature. Concept stretching may carry a negative meaning because it may result in the diluted explanatory power of a theory. Yet overly rigid definitions can limit the scope and effectiveness of political analysis. Some of the key concepts in political science can be stretched (or enriched) by the available public opinion surveys. For example, the traditional study of authoritarian politics can include both elites and masses, and formal and informal politics;27 social capital can incorporate both civic trust (trusting strangers) and community-based interpersonal trust. More importantly, the traditional definitions of democracy, freedom, government responsiveness, and political legitimacy that are derived from institutional designs (objective measures) can be enriched by including public (not elite) perceptions of these concepts (subjective measures). Those who only focus on the institutional design of democracy but discount the importance of public perception of democracy run the risk of political arrogance. Finally, a further barrier to understanding China’s authoritarian resilience is ideological bias. While people outside China take it for granted that academic research in China is ideologically limited, it is also true that China is frequently judged with ideologically tinted glasses by some media organizations and scholars in the West. According to these ideologically tinted views, the authoritarian political system in China is inherently bad; supporting such a system is unhealthy; civic trust is the only type that can qualify as interpersonal trust and social capital; government responsiveness is due to Chinese citizens’ “extremely low expectations,” and so on. These value judgements prevent researchers from understanding what is working and what is not working in the Chinese political system, regardless of whether it is good or bad.