Publicity-driven accountability in China

What, if anything, renders unelected bureaucrats accountable to the public? This thesis draws upon field research on contemporary China's news media, officials, and activists to theorize the role of publicity in non-electoral accountability. "Publicity-driven accountability" argues that even in highly undemocratic settings officials respond to critical media coverage for two reasons: revealing agency slippage and producing common knowledge about government failings. This mechanism empowers the news media and individual citizens even when formal political rights are severely curtailed, producing a degree of public accountability within authoritarian institutions. The study begins with original evidence that China's Internet news outlets created forms of journalistic autonomy within the constraints of state censorship. Next it documents the sensitivity of Chinese officials to negative media coverage with an original survey experiment on local bureaucrats. The third empirical chapter provides case studies of contemporary activists in China wielding publicity to change the behavior of unelected officials. Publicity-driven accountability has consequences for theories of political development and the roles of both authority and information in aligning nondemocratic governance with the public interest.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2013

Author dc:creator

• Distelhorst, Gregory Michael

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Edward Steinfeld.

• Political Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/84853

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/84853