Junyan Jiang
Biographic Data
| ID | 4013504 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Junyan Jiang |
| GIVEN NAMES | Junyan |
| FAMILY NAME | Jiang |
| SIGNATURE | JIANG J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Columbia University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9914-7242 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 353 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 18 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Portraits of Power
As the epitome of modern, rational organizations, bureaucracies are often believed to select candidates based on rules and reason. We argue that intuitive—and even instinctive—assessments of candidates’ external appearances sometimes underpin seemingly rational and calculated decisions. Using a novel, AI-based algorithm that learns and reproduces human assessments of facial appearances at scale, we examine how perceived facial traits influence th…
The impact of hospital competition on healthcare quality
Introduction: Hospital competition has been a common feature in healthcare reforms worldwide, yet scant attention has been paid to its impact on healthcare quality in China. This study aims to comprehensively evaluate the impact of hospital competition on healthcare quality under China's healthcare reform. Methods: This study used multiple datasets comprising city-level and individual-level data of 21,974 individuals across 150 districts. We empl…
Democracy Through Strength in Modern Asia
Junyan Jiang's review essay of Dan Slater and Joseph Wong's From Development to Democracy: The Transformations of Modern Asia highlights the innovative and compelling aspects of the book but also raises some questions about the authors’ interpretations of the conditions, content, and consequences of elite-led democratization in East and Southeast Asia
New Socialist Men (and Women)? Communist Industrial Workplace and Political Engagement in China
Many communist regimes have presided over episodes of rapid industrial development, often coupled by the establishment of a planned economic system wherein the state replaces the market as the primary provider of essential resources and services. We argue that life experience under a communist-style industrial workplace fosters a distinct and enduring set of norms and habits that shape how citizens engage with political authorities. Leveraging ex…
In the Shadows of Great Men
Autocratic leaders differ considerably in how they consolidate power, but what gives rise to these variations remains under-theorized. This article studies how informal political constraints associated with retired leaders shape intra-elite power dynamics. We argue that ageing leaders' efforts to manage the succession problem create an important yet impermanent check on the power of subsequent leaders. To test this argument, we use the massive te…
Political trust and government performance in the time of Covid-19
From Rebel to Ruler
As one of the largest and most powerful political organizations that has ever stood on earth, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is both a crucial actor in and a main product of China's tortuous and turbulent quest for modernity. The CCP's successes, failures, explorations, and transformations not only profoundly shaped the trajectories of the Chinese society and the lives of billions of Chinese citizens but were also an integral part of the twent…
The Rise of Grassroots Civil Society under One-Party Rule
Conventional wisdom holds that one-party regimes are intrinsically hostile to civil society because organized citizens can threaten the regime's political dominance. Contrary to this view, the authors argue that genuinely voluntary civil society organizations may be tolerated, or even actively promoted, by governments in a one-party system when those organizations can help to efficiently resolve intrasocietal distributional conflicts arising from…
Democracy and Mass Skepticism of Science
Since the Age of Enlightenment, many thinkers and philosophers have viewed democracy and science as two aspects of modernity that reinforce each other. This article highlights a tension between the two by arguing that certain aspects of contemporary democracy may aggravate the mass public's anti-intellectual tendency and thus potentially hinder scientific progress. The authors analyze a new global survey of public opinion on science using empiric…
The Price of Probity
Fighting corruption is often seen as a crucial step toward building better institutions, but how it affects political selection remains less well understood. This article argues that in systems where corruption functions as an informal incentive for government to attract talent, anticorruption initiatives that curb rent-seeking opportunities may unintentionally weaken both the quality and the representativeness of the bureaucracy. The authors tes…
Leadership Styles and Political Survival of Chinese Communist Party Elites
The characters and preferences of individual leaders matter greatly for policies and governance in many political systems, yet systematic evidence on how politicians lead and the consequences of their leadership styles remains scant. This study sheds light on these issues by analyzing a unique data set of internal evaluation remarks for top provincial politicians in China. Latent class analyses on evaluation keywords reveal two distinct styles: a…
Friends with benefits
Mandarins make markets
Countering Capture
Government responsiveness is often viewed as a result of political pressure from the public, but why do politicians facing similar pressure sometimes differ in their responsiveness? This article considers the configurations of elite networks as a key mediating factor. We argue that access to external support networks helps improve politicians’ responsiveness to ordinary citizens by reducing their dependence on vested interests, and we test this c…
Enlightened One-Party Rule? Ideological Differences between Chinese Communist Party Members and the Mass Public
A popular view of nondemocratic regimes is that they draw followers mainly from those with an illiberal, authoritarian mind-set. We challenge this view by arguing that there exist a different class of autocracies that rule with a relatively enlightened base. Leveraging multiple nationally representative surveys from China over the past decade, we substantiate this claim by estimating and comparing the ideological preferences of Chinese Communist …
From Internet to social safety net
Internet‐based platforms are increasingly being used by governments around the world to facilitate public engagement with citizens. However, it remains an open question whether participation through these platforms can actually enable citizens to influence policies. We address this question by studying the patterns and consequences of online participation at a major electronic petition platform in China, a country with the world's largest Interne…
Making Bureaucracy Work
Patron-client networks are widely found in governments of transitional societies and are often seen as an impediment to effective governance. This article advances an alternative view that emphasizes their enabling effects. I argue that patron-client relations can be used to improve government performance by resolving principal-agent problems within political hierarchies. I substantiate this claim by examining how patronage networks shape economi…
Lying or Believing? Measuring Preference Falsification From a Political Purge in China
Despite its wide usage in explaining political dynamics of non-democracies, preference falsification remains an empirical myth for students of authoritarian politics due to the challenge of measurement. We offer the first quantitative study of this phenomenon in a non-democratic setting by exploiting a rare coincidence between a major political purge in Shanghai, China, and the administration of a nationwide survey in 2006. We construct two synth…
Making Bureaucracy Work
Patron-client networks are widely found in governments of transitional societies and are often seen as an impediment to effective governance. This article advances an alternative view that emphasizes their enabling effects. I argue that patron-client relations can be used to improve government performance by resolving principal-agent problems within political hierarchies. I substantiate this claim by examining how patronage networks shape economi…
Lying or Believing? Measuring Preference Falsification From a Political Purge in China
Despite its wide usage in explaining political dynamics of non-democracies, preference falsification remains an empirical myth for students of authoritarian politics due to the challenge of measurement. We offer the first quantitative study of this phenomenon in a non-democratic setting by exploiting a rare coincidence between a major political purge in Shanghai, China, and the administration of a nationwide survey in 2006. We construct two synth…
From Internet to social safety net
Internet‐based platforms are increasingly being used by governments around the world to facilitate public engagement with citizens. However, it remains an open question whether participation through these platforms can actually enable citizens to influence policies. We address this question by studying the patterns and consequences of online participation at a major electronic petition platform in China, a country with the world's largest Interne…
Countering Capture
Government responsiveness is often viewed as a result of political pressure from the public, but why do politicians facing similar pressure sometimes differ in their responsiveness? This article considers the configurations of elite networks as a key mediating factor. We argue that access to external support networks helps improve politicians’ responsiveness to ordinary citizens by reducing their dependence on vested interests, and we test this c…
Enlightened One-Party Rule? Ideological Differences between Chinese Communist Party Members and the Mass Public
A popular view of nondemocratic regimes is that they draw followers mainly from those with an illiberal, authoritarian mind-set. We challenge this view by arguing that there exist a different class of autocracies that rule with a relatively enlightened base. Leveraging multiple nationally representative surveys from China over the past decade, we substantiate this claim by estimating and comparing the ideological preferences of Chinese Communist …
The Price of Probity
Fighting corruption is often seen as a crucial step toward building better institutions, but how it affects political selection remains less well understood. This article argues that in systems where corruption functions as an informal incentive for government to attract talent, anticorruption initiatives that curb rent-seeking opportunities may unintentionally weaken both the quality and the representativeness of the bureaucracy. The authors tes…
Mandarins make markets
The Rise of Grassroots Civil Society under One-Party Rule
Conventional wisdom holds that one-party regimes are intrinsically hostile to civil society because organized citizens can threaten the regime's political dominance. Contrary to this view, the authors argue that genuinely voluntary civil society organizations may be tolerated, or even actively promoted, by governments in a one-party system when those organizations can help to efficiently resolve intrasocietal distributional conflicts arising from…
In the Shadows of Great Men
Autocratic leaders differ considerably in how they consolidate power, but what gives rise to these variations remains under-theorized. This article studies how informal political constraints associated with retired leaders shape intra-elite power dynamics. We argue that ageing leaders' efforts to manage the succession problem create an important yet impermanent check on the power of subsequent leaders. To test this argument, we use the massive te…
Political trust and government performance in the time of Covid-19
Leadership Styles and Political Survival of Chinese Communist Party Elites
The characters and preferences of individual leaders matter greatly for policies and governance in many political systems, yet systematic evidence on how politicians lead and the consequences of their leadership styles remains scant. This study sheds light on these issues by analyzing a unique data set of internal evaluation remarks for top provincial politicians in China. Latent class analyses on evaluation keywords reveal two distinct styles: a…
Lying or Believing? Measuring Preference Falsification From a Political Purge in China
Despite its wide usage in explaining political dynamics of non-democracies, preference falsification remains an empirical myth for students of authoritarian politics due to the challenge of measurement. We offer the first quantitative study of this phenomenon in a non-democratic setting by exploiting a rare coincidence between a major political purge in Shanghai, China, and the administration of a nationwide survey in 2006. We construct two synth…
Making Bureaucracy Work
Patron-client networks are widely found in governments of transitional societies and are often seen as an impediment to effective governance. This article advances an alternative view that emphasizes their enabling effects. I argue that patron-client relations can be used to improve government performance by resolving principal-agent problems within political hierarchies. I substantiate this claim by examining how patronage networks shape economi…
From Internet to social safety net
Internet‐based platforms are increasingly being used by governments around the world to facilitate public engagement with citizens. However, it remains an open question whether participation through these platforms can actually enable citizens to influence policies. We address this question by studying the patterns and consequences of online participation at a major electronic petition platform in China, a country with the world's largest Interne…
Friends with benefits
Mandarins make markets
Countering Capture
Government responsiveness is often viewed as a result of political pressure from the public, but why do politicians facing similar pressure sometimes differ in their responsiveness? This article considers the configurations of elite networks as a key mediating factor. We argue that access to external support networks helps improve politicians’ responsiveness to ordinary citizens by reducing their dependence on vested interests, and we test this c…
Enlightened One-Party Rule? Ideological Differences between Chinese Communist Party Members and the Mass Public
A popular view of nondemocratic regimes is that they draw followers mainly from those with an illiberal, authoritarian mind-set. We challenge this view by arguing that there exist a different class of autocracies that rule with a relatively enlightened base. Leveraging multiple nationally representative surveys from China over the past decade, we substantiate this claim by estimating and comparing the ideological preferences of Chinese Communist …
Leadership Styles and Political Survival of Chinese Communist Party Elites
The characters and preferences of individual leaders matter greatly for policies and governance in many political systems, yet systematic evidence on how politicians lead and the consequences of their leadership styles remains scant. This study sheds light on these issues by analyzing a unique data set of internal evaluation remarks for top provincial politicians in China. Latent class analyses on evaluation keywords reveal two distinct styles: a…
The Price of Probity
Fighting corruption is often seen as a crucial step toward building better institutions, but how it affects political selection remains less well understood. This article argues that in systems where corruption functions as an informal incentive for government to attract talent, anticorruption initiatives that curb rent-seeking opportunities may unintentionally weaken both the quality and the representativeness of the bureaucracy. The authors tes…
Political trust and government performance in the time of Covid-19
From Rebel to Ruler
As one of the largest and most powerful political organizations that has ever stood on earth, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is both a crucial actor in and a main product of China's tortuous and turbulent quest for modernity. The CCP's successes, failures, explorations, and transformations not only profoundly shaped the trajectories of the Chinese society and the lives of billions of Chinese citizens but were also an integral part of the twent…
The Rise of Grassroots Civil Society under One-Party Rule
Conventional wisdom holds that one-party regimes are intrinsically hostile to civil society because organized citizens can threaten the regime's political dominance. Contrary to this view, the authors argue that genuinely voluntary civil society organizations may be tolerated, or even actively promoted, by governments in a one-party system when those organizations can help to efficiently resolve intrasocietal distributional conflicts arising from…
Democracy and Mass Skepticism of Science
Since the Age of Enlightenment, many thinkers and philosophers have viewed democracy and science as two aspects of modernity that reinforce each other. This article highlights a tension between the two by arguing that certain aspects of contemporary democracy may aggravate the mass public's anti-intellectual tendency and thus potentially hinder scientific progress. The authors analyze a new global survey of public opinion on science using empiric…
In the Shadows of Great Men
Autocratic leaders differ considerably in how they consolidate power, but what gives rise to these variations remains under-theorized. This article studies how informal political constraints associated with retired leaders shape intra-elite power dynamics. We argue that ageing leaders' efforts to manage the succession problem create an important yet impermanent check on the power of subsequent leaders. To test this argument, we use the massive te…
The impact of hospital competition on healthcare quality
Introduction: Hospital competition has been a common feature in healthcare reforms worldwide, yet scant attention has been paid to its impact on healthcare quality in China. This study aims to comprehensively evaluate the impact of hospital competition on healthcare quality under China's healthcare reform. Methods: This study used multiple datasets comprising city-level and individual-level data of 21,974 individuals across 150 districts. We empl…
Democracy Through Strength in Modern Asia
Junyan Jiang's review essay of Dan Slater and Joseph Wong's From Development to Democracy: The Transformations of Modern Asia highlights the innovative and compelling aspects of the book but also raises some questions about the authors’ interpretations of the conditions, content, and consequences of elite-led democratization in East and Southeast Asia
New Socialist Men (and Women)? Communist Industrial Workplace and Political Engagement in China
Many communist regimes have presided over episodes of rapid industrial development, often coupled by the establishment of a planned economic system wherein the state replaces the market as the primary provider of essential resources and services. We argue that life experience under a communist-style industrial workplace fosters a distinct and enduring set of norms and habits that shape how citizens engage with political authorities. Leveraging ex…
Portraits of Power
As the epitome of modern, rational organizations, bureaucracies are often believed to select candidates based on rules and reason. We argue that intuitive—and even instinctive—assessments of candidates’ external appearances sometimes underpin seemingly rational and calculated decisions. Using a novel, AI-based algorithm that learns and reproduces human assessments of facial appearances at scale, we examine how perceived facial traits influence th…
Political science (16 works) · China (15 works) · Politics (14 works) · Economics (12 works) · Law (11 works) · Law (10 works) · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance (9 works) · Political economy (9 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Democracy (7 works)