Published Works
Brown, Junius F. 2025. “Contacting, Petitioning, and Satisfaction with Government Responsiveness: Nationwide Survey Evidence from China.” Asian Survey. [accepted 2024, published online 2025, issue not yet assigned]
Abstract:
Chinese citizens have access to a wide range of institutional channels through which they can give political input, including contacting elected officials, contacting civil servants, and petitioning. For each of these modalities, Wave 5 of the Asian Barometer Survey allows me to distinguish between recent participants (those who did this in the last three years), potential participants (those who have not recently done this, but would), and non-participants (those who have not and would not do this). I find that across all three modalities, potential participants are more optimistic about government responsiveness than non-participants. But recent petitioners are significantly less optimistic than potential petitioners, and recent contactors are not significantly different from potential contactors in their impressions of government responsiveness. This indicates that petitioners come away disillusioned about responsiveness, while contacting officials has either no net effect or a slight negative effect, but no persistent positive effect.
Elevator pitch: Citizens who sign petitions end up less satisfied with government responsiveness, while contacting the state in other ways has no significant effect.
Brown, Junius F. 2021. “Constructive Citizenship in Urban China.” In The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Citizenship, edited by Zhonghua Guo, 191-205. London: Routledge.
Abstract:
Drawing on a random sample of 200 letters submitted to Mayor’s Mailbox portals across China, this chapter identifies a common but neglected type of citizenship in China. This type is characterized by three key attributes: first, a positive-sum or Pareto-optimizing approach to citizen-state relations; second, a public-spirited concern for local public issues extending beyond the citizen’s immediate well-being; and third, a high sense of political efficacy, implicit in the decision to engage with government officials through rational persuasion rather than legal challenges or self-effacing flattery. Constructive citizenship is less anti-systemic than contention, which has received more attention in the literature. It is also more politically active than subjecthood, and even resembles active citizenship in a liberal democracy. Constructive citizens provide local decision-makers with a relatively low-risk flow of information on public issues, and can assist in the targeting of constituency service in an otherwise low-information environment.
Elevator pitch: Introduces and defines the concept of “constructive citizenship.”
Brown, Junius F. 2021. “Development and Citizenship in the Chinese ‘Mayor’s Mailbox’ System.” Asian Survey 61(3): 443-472.
Abstract:
This article applies Distelhorst and Fu’s (2019) typology of citizenship performances to an original sample of 200 online Mayor’s Mailbox letters to examine how scripts of citizenship differ between richer and poorer areas of China. Using a mixed-methods approach, I find that letters in more developed areas are significantly less likely to present the writer as a submissive subject, but no more likely to frame complaints in terms of rights and legality. I also find that many letter writers behave as “constructive citizens” by stressing their interest in helping the authorities improve local governance. These findings challenge linear understandings of the value shift that follows development, and suggest that the focus on contention in the literature on citizenship under authoritarianism overlooks other, more cooperative forms of political participation in consolidated autocracies.
Elevator pitch: Citizens in wealthier parts of China are less likely to address local government in a submissive tone, but no more likely to use rights-defense rhetoric.