Revisiting Political Wariness in China’s Public Opinion Surveys: Experimental Evidence on Responses to Politically Sensitive Questions
Revisiting Political Wariness in China’s Public Opinion Surveys: Experimental Evidence on Responses to Politically Sensitive Questions
复制标题
重新审视中国民意调查中的政治警惕性：政治敏感问题回应的实验证据
DOI：
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发表时间：
2017
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Jie Lu
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Xuchuan Lei;Jie Lu
ABSTRACT Using two survey experiments run on college students and average Chinese citizens respectively, this article revisits the impact of political wariness on public opinion surveys in contemporary China. The authors randomly assigned some respondents to a control group, in which face-to-face surveys were administered following the standard procedure endorsed by China’s academic survey industry. Remaining respondents were randomly assigned to experimental groups, in which the otherwise identical surveys were presented as affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Neither college students nor average citizens in the experimental groups showed a significantly higher non-response rate or reported more politically correct answers when probed for their assessments of China’s democratic quality and their trust in China’s political system. On the contrary, responding to possible cues conveyed by the CCP emblem interviewers wore (i.e. one of the treatments), college students significantly lowered their assessments of China’s democratic quality and raised their perceived need for fundamental changes in China’s political system; similarly, average citizens significantly downgraded their overall trust in the CCP. This research did not detect any significant influence of political wariness in the surveys.
ABSTRACT Using two survey experiments run on college students and average Chinese citizens respectively, this article revisits the impact of political wariness on public opinion surveys in contemporary China. The authors randomly assigned some respondents to a control group, in which face-to-face surveys were administered following the standard procedure endorsed by China’s academic survey industry. Remaining respondents were randomly assigned to experimental groups, in which the otherwise identical surveys were presented as affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Neither college students nor average citizens in the experimental groups showed a significantly higher non-response rate or reported more politically correct answers when probed for their assessments of China’s democratic quality and their trust in China’s political system. On the contrary, responding to possible cues conveyed by the CCP emblem interviewers wore (i.e. one of the treatments), college students significantly lowered their assessments of China’s democratic quality and raised their perceived need for fundamental changes in China’s political system; similarly, average citizens significantly downgraded their overall trust in the CCP. This research did not detect any significant influence of political wariness in the surveys.