Publications
Yingjie Fan, Jennifer Pan, and Tongtong Zhang. “Gender and Political Compliance Under Authoritarian Rule.” Comparative Political Studies (2024): 00104140241283007.
When autocrats do not impose explicit rules of behavior on their subjects, what does political compliance look like? Existing research suggests that such conditions generate uncertainty, leading risk-averse individuals to self-censor in an effort to minimize the risk of punishment. In this paper, wend that women and men differ in how they express political compliance under conditions of uncertainty. Focusing on Confucius Institute teachers who are given broad objectives but no specific rules of political behavior, we use interviews, a global survey, and an experiment to show that women express compliance by increasing uncensored discussions to persuade host country students toward the Chinese regime’s point of view. In contrast, men comply by vociferously defending the party line and censoring further discussions. These gendered strategies of political compliance are rooted in the differing gender socialization experiences of men and women, who face divergent expectations on how they should interact with others.
Yingjie Fan, Jennifer Pan, and Jaymee Sheng. 2023. “Strategies of Chinese State Media on Twitter.” Political Communication 41(1): 4-25.
How do state-controlled broadcasters reach foreign publics to engage in public diplomacy in the era of social media? Previous research suggests that features unique to social media, such as the ability to engage in two-way communication with audiences, provide state-controlled broadcasters new opportunities for online public diplomacy. In this paper, we examine what strategies were used by four Chinese state-controlled media outlets on Twitter to reach foreign publics as the Chinese Communist Party worked to expand its public diplomacy and international media outreach efforts. We find that all outlets increased the volume and diversity of content while none engaged in interactive, two-way communication with audiences, and none appeared to artificially inflate their follower count. One outlet, China Global Television Network, made outsized gains in followership, and it differs from the other Chinese outlets in that it was rebranded, it disseminated a relatively lower share of government-mandated narratives pertaining to China, and the tone of its reporting was more negative. These results show that during a period when Chinese state-controlled broadcasters gained followers on Twitter, outlets made limited use of features unique to social media and instead primarily used social media as a broadcast channel.
Working Paper
Yingjie Fan, Jennifer Pan, Zijie Shao, and Yiqing Xu. “Selection, Stability, and Shock: Political Attitudes of Chinese Students at Home and Abroad.”
Theories of social remittance and democratic diffusion predict that exposure to liberal democracies fosters support for political liberalism, while recent studies on Chinese overseas students suggest stronger patriotism and authoritarian support. Using a unique four-year longitudinal dataset of nearly 1,000 Chinese college students in China and the United States, we examine how studying abroad and home-country policies during the Covid pandemic shape students’ ideology and attitudes. Our findings challenge both perspectives. Students who study in the U.S. are already more politically liberal, market-oriented, cosmopolitan, and less nationalistic than peers before departure, underscoring the importance of selection. Ideological preferences remain remarkably stable throughout college, regardless of location or global turmoil. Support for China’s political system declines among students in both countries after China’s 2022 pandemic response, with a greater decline among students in the U.S. These results show that selection, home-country shocks, and host-country context jointly shape overseas students’ political attitudes.
Yingjie Fan, Jennifer Pan, Zijie Shao, and Yiqing Xu. “How Discrimination Increases Chinese Overseas Students’ Support for Authoritarian Rule.”
A large body of research suggests that individuals from non-democratic countries who visit democracies become dissatisfied with their home country’s political system, and this dissatisfaction enables democratic diffusion. We argue that experiences of discrimination can disrupt this process. Using a randomized experiment with first-year Chinese college students in the U.S. during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, we find that exposure to xenophobic, anti-Chinese comments increases support for China’s existing political system and reduces the perceived desirability of political reforms for China. The results show that discrimination triggers a psychological response, as well as heightened attachment to Chinese identity and greater perceptions of the United States as an out-group threat. By showing how xenophobic experiences can disrupt the process of the diffusion of democratic values, this study sheds light on the role of discrimination in shaping political attitudes.
Yutian An and Yingjie Fan, Xuancheng Qian, Leo Yang. “From Visibility to Shadows:The Impact of Police Discretion on Prostitution in Response to Legal Changes.”
Criminal law is typically seen as the domain of judges and prosecutors, yet police officers often act as de facto policymakers through their enforcement discretion. This paper explores the impact of police discretion on prostitution regulation in China, following a 2017 legal interpretation that lowered the threshold for prosecuting pimps. Using novel datasets of over 110,000 administrative penalties and 3,300 criminal judgments related to prostitution, we find that the heightened criminal liability for pimps has led to intensified police crackdowns in visible venues such as clubhouses, massage parlors, and karaoke bars. This enforcement shift was driven by police incentives to meet criminal investigation quotas, now facilitated by the eased criteria for accumulating evidence against pimps, which disproportionately affected prostitution in “visible” locations and pushed prostitution activities underground in the long run. Overall, these findings highlight the significance of grass-roots police incentives in delivering policy objectives and shaping regulatory outcomes.
Yutian An and Yingjie Fan. “Beyond the Verdict: The Impact of Juries on Judicial Support.”
Citizen participation is often seen as a key source of political legitimacy, but does this logic apply to the judiciary? This paper examines the impact of perceived citizen participation, in the form of juries, on judicial support. We theorize that juries strengthen judicial support by enhancing the perceived procedural fairness in adjudications and legitimizing the broader judicial system via popular participation. Using a mixed-methods approach that integrates fieldwork with a survey experiment, this study investigates how China’s lay assessor system fosters support for the judiciary. Empirical findings show that lay participation improves perceptions of fairness and increases demand for more lay involvement. As a due process mechanism, lay assessors enhance fairness perceptions, while voting—a defining jury feature—substantively boosts judicial legitimacy. These results support our theory that juries play a dual role in strengthening judicial support through due process and popular participation across legal systems.
Yingjie Fan and Jean Oi. “The Missing Institutional Actor in China’s BRI: Export & Credit Insurance Corporation (Sinosure)”
How do Chinese firms mitigate the risks of high-stakes overseas investments, particularly under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)? This paper identifies the Chinese Export & Credit Insurance Corporation (SINOSURE)—a state-owned export credit agency—as a crucial, yet overlooked, institutional mechanism to achieve a corporate “lock-in” effect for China’s global economic expansion. Drawing on comparative evidence, we benchmark SINOSURE’s services and coverage against foreign ECAs and domestic competitors. We find that the Chinese state expanded the scope of the services provided by SINOSURE to encourage and safeguard corporations engaging in global markets via ECAs to promote states’ objective of economic growth and international trade. With the introduction of the BRI, SINOSURE broadened the array of insurance products and support services, enabling Chinese firms to engage in high-risk markets with greater informational and institutional safeguards. Contrary to prevailing narratives of politically driven, risk-insensitive expansion, SINOSURE provides Chinese firms with global-standard ratings and institutional advantages to assess and manage risks and maintain financial sustainability. SINOSURE political proximity allows it to enhance the competitiveness of Chinese firms abroad and sheds light on how as an ECAs, it can reconcile political mandates with financial discipline.
Yingjie Fan and Xu Xu. “State-Endorsed Moral Outrage: Crowdsourced Coercion in the Era of Social Media.”
Social media is often seen as a bottom-up revolutionary force against authoritarian rule. However, this paper shows that such bottom-up mobilization can also be exploited for political and social control. We argue that the vast social networks and interconnectivity of social media amplify moral outrage—public condemnation of perceived moral violations—making it highly contagious. Authoritarian governments can leverage such outrage to suppress dissent or enforce state-sanctioned moral norms. Using large-scale social media data from Sina Weibo, we analyze two high-profile cases of online nationalist attacks in China to illustrate the contagious nature of moral outrage and the escalating effects of state endorsement. A survey experiment with 1,351 Chinese internet users further reveals the moral mechanisms through which social exposure to outrage and state endorsement intensify outrage expressions. The findings highlight how moral discourse and crowdsourced enforcement are leveraged as tools of authoritarian control in the social media era.
Yingjie Fan 