A spatial valence model of political participation in China
| Author | Jason Y Wu |
| Published date | 01 April 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0951629819833190 |
| Date | 01 April 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Journal of Theoretical Politics
2019, Vol.31(2) 244–259
ÓThe Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0951629819833190
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A spatial valence model of
political participation in
China
Jason Y Wu
Indiana University, USA
Abstract
In spatial models of political competition in democracies, citizens vote for the party or candidate
that is the closest to their own ideological position, while in valence models, voters decide on the
basis of non-policy factors, such as competence. What remains unclear, however, is whether citi-
zens in authoritarian regimes usespatial or valence considerations to guide their decisions to par-
ticipate in politics. This study uses data from the 2015 Chinese Urban Governance Survey to
measure the ideology of Chinese citizens, and estimates an empirical stochastic model to explore
how Chinese citizens use ideological distanceand valence to determine how they want to partici-
pate in politics. The results show that valence issues, such as perceived government competence,
play a larger role inpolitical participation than ideology.
Keywords
China; ideology; political participation; valence
1. Introduction
How do people make political choices under authoritarian rule? Spatial theories of
political behavior in democracies model voting using the ideological distance
between individuals and political parties, while valence theories argue that non-
policy evaluations of a political actor are also important. Whether citizens in auto-
cracies primarily participate in politics because of ideological or valence motiva-
tions is an open question. In this paper, I use a survey of Chinese citizens and an
empirical stochastic model that incorporates both spatial distance and valence to
Corresponding author:
Jason Y Wu, IndianaUniversity, USA.
Email: jywu@indiana.edu
venture an answer to this question. I find that while the spatial model does explain
a significant part of the decision to consider protesting or the decision to join the
Communist Party, valence, and in particular evaluations of the government’s com-
petence, is a more important factor for explaining political participation in China.
The logic of the spatial model also predicts that political actors should locate
themselves at a particular point in the ideological space to maximize their popular
support. In the classic spatial model, whichconsiders ideology along one dimension
and models individual choice in a deterministic fashion, that point is the median
voter (Downs, 1957; Riker and Ordeshook, 1973). In stochastic spatial models, par-
ties are expected to converge on the electoral mean (McKelvey and Patty, 2006).
These results are at odds with cases such as the USA, where political parties fail to
converge on the median voter. To reconcile this divide between theory and out-
comes, Schofield (2007) incorporates asymmetries in valence into the model. In the
Schofield model, political parties do not necessarily converge on the electoral mean
in equilibrium. Lower-valence political actors may be forced to move to the fringe
of the ideological space to maximize their support.
Although the spatial model was designed to explain electoral politics, a similar
spatial logic guides political contestation in authoritarian regimes. High-valence
political actors, such as the government, attempt to occupy the center of the ideo-
logical space and paint the potential opposition as the ideological fringe (Schofield
and Levinson, 2008). In my analysis, I find that ideological distances between
Communist Party members and members of the potential opposition are relatively
small, and that both groups locate themselves close to the center of the ideological
space. This result suggests that citizens choose between the Communist Party and
the potential opposition on the basis of valence issues, rather than ideological
ones.
In the next section of this paper, I review previous research on the spatial model
and generate theoretical expectations for how ideology and valence operate in
China. Then, after sketching Schofield’s spatial valence model, I explain how I
constructed my measures of ideology, estimate the model, and present the empiri-
cal results. The conclusion explores some of the implications of the findings for
political contestation in China in the future.
2. Spatial and valence explanations of political behavior
In the classic spatial model popularized by Downs (1957) and Hotelling (1929),
political parties are motivated by holding office and choose a policy position in the
ideological space to maximize their share of the vote. Citizens vote for the party
that has the policy position that is closest to their own views. Under this frame-
work, political parties converge on the median voter, which leaves voters indiffer-
ent between their electoral choices.
One of the early objections to this line of reasoning was that not all issues lent
themselves to variation along an ideological space. While public opinion is divided
in its support for some policies, such as the proper level of state involvement in the
economy, for certain valence issues, such as the need for honest leaders, or the need
Wu 245
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