Published Works
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.
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.”
Working Papers
Brown, Junius F. 2023. “When Responses Are Not Responsive: Communication and Performative Governance on China’s ‘Message Board for Leaders.’”
Abstract:
Past research on government responsiveness in China tends to focus on a citizen’s probability of receiving a solution, often by treating responsiveness as a binary variable. In this paper, I draw on an original sample of 2,000 letters and replies on the Message Board for Leaders (MBL) to argue for a greater focus on the less responsive replies, which offer a window into the ways local government agencies mollify dissatisfied citizens. When unable to fully solve an issue, replies appease citizens with partial solutions; adjudicate between competing interest groups; and sometimes use the law as a shield, citing specific regulations to explain why the government cannot help or to justify the status quo. These findings fit together with a broader turn in the authoritarian responsiveness literature, which in recent years has come to focus less on responsiveness as a metric of good governance, and more on responsiveness as a tool of control.
Elevator pitch: The excuses which local governments make when unable to solve a problem tell us about the nature of state-society communication in China.
Brown, Junius F. 2022. “Results May Vary: Satisfaction with Petitioning Channels in Authoritarian China.”
Abstract:
In this paper, I use data from the Asian Barometer Survey to evaluate public satisfaction with different institutional input channels in the People’s Republic of China. I find that citizens who have contacted an elected official in the last three years tend to be more satisfied with China’s governing system, while citizens who have contacted higher officials tend to be less satisfied in the present. Citizens who have petitioned collectively skew towards both ends of the satisfaction spectrum, compared to those who have not. These relationships are substantively weak and only marginally significant, suggesting that institutionalized political participation has a limited effect on popular support for the Chinese Communist Party. They do, however, help to explain why case studies of individual Chinese institutions reach varying conclusions about the Chinese government’s responsiveness.
Elevator pitch: Contacting local officials raises satisfaction in government; contacting higher officials erodes it; collective petitioning polarizes it.