Resources

Methodological resources and reading lists for research

Methodological Resources

Reading List on Government Responsiveness

  1. Putnam, Robert D. 1993. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
  2. O’Brien, Kevin J., and Lianjiang Li. 2006. Rightful Resistance in Rural China. New York: Cambridge University Press.
  3. Chen, Xi. 2009. “The Power of ‘Troublemaking’: Protest Tactics and Their Efficacy in China.” Comparative Politics 41 (4): 451–71. https://doi.org/10.5129/001041509X12911362972557.
  4. Chen, Xi. 2012. Social Protest and Contentious Authoritarianism in China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  5. King, Gary, Jennifer Pan, and Margaret E. Roberts. 2013. “How Censorship in China Allows Government Criticism but Silences Collective Expression.” American Political Science Review 107 (2): 326–43. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055413000014.
  6. Su, Zheng, and Tianguang Meng. 2016. “Selective Responsiveness: Online Public Demands and Government Responsiveness in Authoritarian China.” Social Science Research 59: 52–67.
  7. Chen, Jidong, Jennifer Pan, and Yiqing Xu. 2016. “Sources of Authoritarian Responsiveness: A Field Experiment in China.” American Journal of Political Science 60 (2): 383–400. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12207.
  8. Meng, Tianguang, Jennifer Pan, and Ping Yang. 2017. “Conditional Receptivity to Citizen Participation: Evidence from a Survey Experiment in China.” Comparative Political Studies 50 (4): 399–433. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414014556212.
  9. Chen, Jidong, and Yiqing Xu. 2017. “Why Do Authoritarian Regimes Allow Citizens to Voice Opinions Publicly?” The Journal of Politics 79 (3): 792–803. https://doi.org/10.1086/690303.
  10. Distelhorst, Greg, and Yue Hou. 2017. “Constituency Service Under Nondemocratic Rule: Evidence from China.” The Journal of Politics 79 (3): 1024–40. https://doi.org/10.1086/690948.
  11. Pan, Jennifer, and Kaiping Chen. 2018. “Concealing Corruption: How Chinese Officials Distort Upward Reporting of Online Grievances.” American Political Science Review 112 (3): 602–20. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055418000205.
  12. Cai, Yongshun, and Titi Zhou. 2019. “Online Political Participation in China: Local Government and Differentiated Response.” The China Quarterly 238 (June): 331–52. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741019000055.
  13. Jiang, Junyan, Tianguang Meng, and Qing Zhang. 2019. “From Internet to Social Safety Net: The Policy Consequences of Online Participation in China.” Governance 32 (3): 531–546.
  14. Jiang, Junyan, and Yu Zeng. 2020. “Countering Capture: Elite Networks and Government Responsiveness in China’s Land Market Reform.” The Journal of Politics 82 (1): 13–28. https://doi.org/10.1086/705595.
  15. Gueorguiev, Dimitar D. 2022. Retrofitting Leninism: Participation Without Democracy in China. New York: Oxford University Press.
  16. Zeng, Yu, Junyan Jiang, Jie Li, and Christian Göbel. 2023. “The Rise of Grassroots Civil Society Under One-Party Rule: The Case of China’s Homeowner Associations.” World Politics 75 (3): 608–46. https://doi.org/10.1353/wp.2023.a900714.
  17. Wang, Howard H., Edmund W. Cheng, Xi Chen, and Hai Liang. 2024. “How Institutionalized Feedback Works: Online Citizen Complaints and Local Government Responsiveness in China.” Governance, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1111/gove.12907.
  18. Cheng, E. W., & Yuen, S. (2025). The Making of Leaderful Mobilization: Power and Contention in Hong Kong. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009445832

Reading List on Chinese Politics and Public Policies

  1. O’Brien, Kevin J., and Lianjiang Li. 2006. Rightful Resistance in Rural China. New York: Cambridge University Press.
  2. Landry, Pierre F. 2008. Decentralized Authoritarianism in China: The Communist Party’s Control of Local Elites in the Post-Mao Era. New York: Cambridge University Press.
  3. Cai, Yongshun. 2010. Collective Resistance in China: Why Popular Protests Succeed or Fail. Studies of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press.
  4. Chen, Xi. 2012. Social Protest and Contentious Authoritarianism in China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  5. Shih, Victor, Christopher Adolph, and Mingxing Liu. 2012. “Getting Ahead in the Communist Party: Explaining the Advancement of Central Committee Members in China.” American Political Science Review 106 (1): 166–87. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055411000566.
  6. Li, Lianjiang, Mingxing Liu, and Kevin J. O’Brien. 2012. “Petitioning Beijing: The High Tide of 2003–2006.” The China Quarterly 210 (June): 313–34. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741012000227.
  7. Lü, Xiaobo, and Pierre F. Landry. 2014. “Show Me the Money: Interjurisdiction Political Competition and Fiscal Extraction in China.” American Political Science Review 108 (3): 706–22. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055414000252.
  8. Truex, Rory. 2014. “The Returns to Office in a ‘Rubber Stamp’ Parliament.” American Political Science Review 108 (2): 235–51. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055414000112.
  9. Wang, Yuhua, and Carl Minzner. 2015. “The Rise of the Chinese Security State.” The China Quarterly 222 (June): 339–59. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741015000430.
  10. Wang, Yuhua. 2015. Tying the Autocrat’s Hands: The Rise of the Rule of Law in China. New York: Cambridge University Press.
  11. Chen, Jidong, Jennifer Pan, and Yiqing Xu. 2016. “Sources of Authoritarian Responsiveness: A Field Experiment in China.” American Journal of Political Science 60 (2): 383–400. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12207.
  12. Cheng, Edmund W. 2016. “Street Politics in a Hybrid Regime: The Diffusion of Political Activism in Post-Colonial Hong Kong.” The China Quarterly 226 (June): 383–406. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741016000394.
  13. Chen, Xi. 2017. “Elitism and Exclusion in Mass Protest: Privatization, Resistance, and State Domination in China.” Comparative Political Studies 50 (7): 908–34. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414016655532.
  14. Meng, Tianguang, Jennifer Pan, and Ping Yang. 2017. “Conditional Receptivity to Citizen Participation: Evidence from a Survey Experiment in China.” Comparative Political Studies 50 (4): 399–433. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414014556212.
  15. Yuen, Samson, and Edmund W. Cheng. 2017. “Neither Repression nor Concession? A Regime’s Attrition Against Mass Protests.” Political Studies 65 (3): 611–30. https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321716674024.
  16. Truex, Rory. 2017. “Consultative Authoritarianism and Its Limits.” Comparative Political Studies 50 (3): 329–61. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414014534196.
  17. Distelhorst, Greg, and Yue Hou. 2017. “Constituency Service Under Nondemocratic Rule: Evidence from China.” The Journal of Politics 79 (3): 1024–40. https://doi.org/10.1086/690948.
  18. Landry, Pierre F., Xiaobo Lü, and Haiyan Duan. 2018. “Does Performance Matter? Evaluating Political Selection Along the Chinese Administrative Ladder.” Comparative Political Studies 51 (8): 1074–1105. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414017730078.
  19. Pan, Jennifer, and Yiqing Xu. 2018. “China’s Ideological Spectrum.” The Journal of Politics 80 (1): 254–73. https://doi.org/10.1086/694255.
  20. Jiang, Junyan. 2018. “Making Bureaucracy Work: Patronage Networks, Performance Incentives, and Economic Development in China.” American Journal of Political Science 62 (4): 982–99. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12394.
  21. Jiang, Junyan, Tianguang Meng, and Qing Zhang. 2019. “From Internet to Social Safety Net: The Policy Consequences of Online Participation in China.” Governance 32 (3): 531–46. https://doi.org/10.1111/gove.12391.
  22. Zhang, Han, and Jennifer Pan. 2019. “CASM: A Deep-Learning Approach for Identifying Collective Action Events with Text and Image Data from Social Media.” Sociological Methodology 49 (1): 1–57. https://doi.org/10.1177/0081175019860244.
  23. Chen, Sicheng, Tom Christensen, and Liang Ma. 2019. “Competing for Father’s Love? The Politics of Central Government Agency Termination in China.” Governance 32 (4): 761–77. https://doi.org/10.1111/gove.12405.
  24. Pan, Jennifer. 2020. Welfare for Autocrats: How Social Assistance in China Cares for Its Rulers. New York: Oxford University Press.
  25. Jiang, Junyan, and Yu Zeng. 2020. “Countering Capture: Elite Networks and Government Responsiveness in China’s Land Market Reform.” The Journal of Politics 82 (1): 13–28. https://doi.org/10.1086/705595.
  26. Jiang, Junyan, and Zhaotian Luo. 2021. “Leadership Styles and Political Survival of Chinese Communist Party Elites.” The Journal of Politics 83 (2): 777–82. https://doi.org/10.1086/710144.
  27. Liang, Hai, and Francis L.F. Lee. 2021. “Opinion Leadership in a Leaderless Movement: Discussion of the Anti-Extradition Bill Movement in the ‘LIHKG’ Web Forum.” Social Movement Studies 22 (5–6): 670–88. https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2021.1989294.
  28. Göbel, Christian. 2021. “The Political Logic of Protest Repression in China.” Journal of Contemporary China 30 (128): 169–85. https://doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2020.1790897.
  29. Li, Lianjiang. 2022. “Decoding Political Trust in China: A Machine Learning Analysis.” The China Quarterly 249 (March): 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741021001077.
  30. Zhan, Jing Vivian. 2022. China’s Contained Resource Curse: How Minerals Shape State-Capital-Labor Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  31. Cheng, Edmund W., Francis L.F. Lee, Samson Yuen, and Gary Tang. 2022. “Total Mobilization from Below: Hong Kong’s Freedom Summer.” The China Quarterly 251 (September): 629–59. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741022000236.
  32. Wang, Yuhua. 2022. The Rise and Fall of Imperial China: The Social Origins of State Development. Princeton Studies in Contemporary China Ser, v. 17. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
  33. Dimitrov, Martin K. 2023. Dictatorship and Information: Authoritarian Regime Resilience in Communist Europe and China. New York: Oxford University Press.
  34. Mattingly, Daniel C. 2024. “How the Party Commands the Gun: The Foreign-Domestic Threat Dilemma in China.” American Journal of Political Science 68 (1): 227–42.
  35. Mattingly, Daniel, Trevor Incerti, Changwook Ju, Colin Moreshead, Seiki Tanaka, and Hikaru Yamagishi. 2024. “Chinese State Media Persuades a Global Audience That the ‘China Model’ Is Superior: Evidence from a 19‐Country Experiment.” American Journal of Political Science, July. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12887.
  36. Cheng, E. W., & Yuen, S. (2025). The Making of Leaderful Mobilization: Power and Contention in Hong Kong. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009445832

Recognized Journals (Reputation-based)

Note: The more asterisks (*) a journal has, the more frequently I read it.

Top 5 in Economics

Top 5 in Political Science

Other Excellent Journals for Political Scientists

Tops in Public Administration

Tops in Sociology

Tops in Communication

Tops in Marketing

Tops in General Social Science

Other Great Journals

Note:

This list is not authoritative and it is only intended as a reference for identifying journals of interest across multiple disciplines.

Academic journal preferences vary widely among individuals, and even a single individual's preferences may shift over time as they gain more experience in reading, researching, and publishing.