比较政治

CQ 266 pp. 435-452 2026-03-30 Original Political Satire and the Decline of Discourse Quality: Evidence from China’s Online Public Sphere

JOP — 2026-03-30 Original Elite Rhetoric and the Running Tally of Party-Group Linkages Christoffer Hentzer Dausgaard, Frederik Hjorth Abstract （原文未提供摘要） 中文 精英修辞与政党—群体联系的动态记录 Christoffer Hentzer Dausgaard, Frederik Hjorth

CQ 265 pp. 201-217 2026-03-26 Original Multilevel Diaspora Governance: A Case Study of a New Qiaoxiang County in China Na Ren, Sitong Long Abstract Abstract Since China’s open-door policy and “going-out” strategy gained momentum in the 21st century, several new qiaoxiang 侨乡 (“hometowns” of overseas Chinese) have emerged. The launch of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013 has further increased Chinese transnational mobility and the interactions between overseas Chinese communities and their places of origin. This study takes Shaodong city in Hunan province as a case study to explain the driving forces behind the formation of a newly emerging qiaoxiang from political and socio-economic perspectives. It proposes that multilayered transnational network governance is a significant model for qiaoxiang in diaspora engagement. Using a rescaling approach, this study argues that diaspora governance relies not only on the primordial ties of locality, kinship and ethnicity that new emigrants maintain with their hometowns but is also dynamically shaped by pluralized qiaoxiang governmental networks at various levels, including provincial, municipal and county. These networks are constructed by the diaspora through both vertical and horizontal structures. Theoretically, this study transcends the traditional paradigm of centralized and singular diaspora governance at national or subnational levels, contributing to the understanding of the multilevel structures of diaspora governance from decentralized and pluralized perspectives.

CQ 266 pp. 470-480 2026-03-26 Original China’s Internal Security Spending: An Assessment of New Data Sheena Chestnut Greitens Abstract Abstract Internal security has been a governance priority under Xi Jinping. How does China’s budget reflect this prioritization? This research report presents updated data on China’s internal security spending, 1992–2022, revealing a mix of continuity and change. Domestic security expenditure continues to rise, more than doubling from 2012 to 2022, but has risen mostly in proportion to the People’s Republic of China’s overall expenditure. The balance between central and local expenditure has shifted further towards local spending, which, in the context of rising local fiscal constraint, may increase pressure on local public security bureaus. The Ministry of Public Security continues to receive the largest share of domestic security spending, while the proportion of internal security spending allocated to the People’s Armed Police (PAP) has decreased, probably reflecting the reorganization of the PAP in 2017–2018. Spending per capita and relative to GDP continues to be higher in locations that are politically sensitive, including Beijing, Tibet and Xinjiang.

AJPS — 2026-03-25 Original Mutual restraint in nondemocratic legislatures Sarah Hummel Abstract Abstract Nondemocratic regimes sometimes benefit from tolerating the expression of critical opinions and visions for policy in their legislatures. Doing so enables them to gather important information about societal preferences, to co‐opt potential challengers, and to address other threats to their control. In these cases, regimes and deputies exhibit mutual restraint: deputies respect regime‐set limits on their freedom to express critical opinions, while regimes refrain from punishing deputies for expressing negative views when the stakes are acceptably low. By examining both the responsiveness of individual deputies and how regimes police the limits of acceptable behavior, we are better able to identify both the functions and strengths of nondemocratic legislatures. I illustrate these dynamics using data about deputy voting behavior and legislative success in the Kyrgyz Jogorku Kenesh (2016–2020).

AJPS — 2026-03-24 Original Unraveling authoritarian reform decision‐making: A metacognitive–subcognitive model

CQ 266 pp. 345-364 2026-03-24 Original Explaining China’s High Welfare Spending: Local Models and Drivers of Fiscally Oriented Affordable Housing

APSR — pp. 1-20 2026-03-23 Original The Effects of Exposure to New Electoral Rules: Field Experimental Evidence from Sierra Leone AVI AHUJA, GWYNETH MCCLENDON Abstract How do electoral rules influence voters? We build on existing research that has examined voter, rather than elite, reactions to electoral rules and implement a field experiment around a switch from single-member plurality rules to multi-member closed-list proportional rules (PR) in Sierra Leone, expanding the study of electoral rules’ influence on voters further into the Global South. We find that exposure to multimember district/PR increased women’s commitment to voting and decreased both men’s and women’s support for particularistic campaign appeals in this context. These results likely flow from voters’ perceptions of whether politicians are accountable to parties or to voters under different systems, rather than from increased party competition, new party entry, a clear switch to programmatic party competition, or increased trust in elections. We discuss the implications for studying electoral rules in clientelistic democracies.

APSR — pp. 1-22 2026-03-23 Original Do Elites Know Best? Candidate Selection and Policy Implementation in Postindependence Tanzania JEREMY BOWLES Abstract How do candidate selection processes shape policy outcomes? Studying Tanzania’s initial single-party legislative elections, I assess how electing candidates preferred by party elites affected policy implementation, which emphasized rural development during this period. Leveraging the deterministic assignment of ballot symbols—which was orthogonal to candidate characteristics but had large electoral effects—finds that their election substantially increased the supply of salient local public goods. Assembling novel candidate-level data, I document that elites prioritized candidates’ national prominence while voters prioritized their local ties. Rather than representing misaligned incentives, the results are consistent with elites, in an incipient regime, more quickly understanding which characteristics would matter for candidates’ performance in office. Beyond highlighting novel conditions under which elite-led candidate selection facilitates responsiveness, the results underscore the distributive consequences of candidate selection even in nondemocratic settings.

AJPS — 2026-03-19 Original You and whose economy? Group‐based retrospection in economic voting