The Chinese Communist Party has recently acknowledged its attempts to bolster good governance by outsourcing public and social service functions to social organizations—non-profit organizations, either created by relevant government bureaus, developed through non-profit incubators, or voluntarily created civil society groups. Do these services gender political trust for the party-state? Using matching methods on an original survey data collected in communities in Shanghai, this article reveals two important findings. (1) Service efficacy—the internal belief that one can affect the content of the services show strong correlation with political trust and the relationship is stronger than that between service quality and political support. (2) There is strong evidence for credit transfer—whilst accountability for these services is attributed to grassroots actors and there is strong correlation between service efficacy and political support, political support increases only for the central government level. The results show how the new programs of social service outsourcing and incorporation of non-governmental organizations in service provision can increase support for the party-state.

What explains the exponential growth of the number of NGOs in China during the recent decades? Moving beyond the extant literature that focuses on the strategic relationship between NGOs and the local state, this article argues that the growth can be also attributed to the central state which has focused on the promotion of different types of NGOs throughout time. The proactive role of the central state has become more conspicuous under Xi administration where the party-state plays a more active role in maneuvering the growth of a service-oriented third sector. This adaptive strategy has led to the counterintuitive phenomenon of an increase in institutional space for NGOs in authoritarian China, especially the social service-oriented NGOs in recent years. This article draws from theories of institutional change to explain the process through which the central state has expanded institutional space for NGOs throughout time.

Air pollutants allegedly originating from China have become a thorny issue in South Korea. Despite a neutral view of the topic on the part of the South Korean government, recent public polls show a high correlation between the air pollution issue and negative sentiment toward China. How has the media reported on China regarding air pollutants in South Korea? What is the effect of media reports on air pollution on anti-Chinese sentiment and foreign policy attitudes? By examining news headlines and Twitter data in 2015 and 2018, this work finds that media reports blaming China for air pollution doubled during the 2015–2018 period. Discourse surrounding air pollution also shifted: negative sentiment directed at both the Chinese government and the Chinese people increased in 2018 compared to 2015. In addition, an original online survey experiment shows that China-blaming articles have a causal effect on increasing related resentment, particularly toward Chinese people, and that this effect is moderated by age group. Such articles have also had negative effects on foreign policy attitudes via increased anti-Chinese sentiment; greater hostility toward the Chinese people is found to have a causal effect on reduced support for strengthening relations with their country.

COVID-19 generated significant anti-Chinese sentiment in South Korea. Domestic elite-level narratives regarding China at the pandemic’s onset were highly polarized: conservative parties advocated border shutdowns, emphasizing China as originating the virus, while progressive parties warned that this would incite xenophobia. Did these narratives shape anti-Chinese sentiment, and what are their foreign policy effects? Using social media data, I show that despite the polarized narratives at the elite level, attitudes of both conservative and progressive voters became unfavorable toward China following COVID-19’s onset. Furthermore, statistical analyses of survey data show that this blame is strongly associated with negative perceptions of China. Although substantively not directly linked to foreign policy, blame of China is strongly associated with rejection of foreign policy alignment with China and a shift toward supporting alignment with the US. These results have implications for understanding public support of South Korea’s foreign policy amid US–China bifurcation.

How has COVID-19 affected the personalization of executive power in South Korea? To answer this question, we draw on the conceptual framework of personalization concerning democracies and autocracies. We find that, personalization attempts were made via mechanism of personnel management (e.g., the appointment of allies within the pandemic-response bureaucracy) and via mechanism violence which consists of enacting the Infectious Diseases Control and Prevention Act, which restricted the freedom of assembly of anti-government forces. However, personnel management was more pronounced than the mechanism of violence due to the role of administrative courts and the National Human Rights Commission, which prevented an outright ban of freedom of assembly. Under the Park administration, many personalization attempts were made but not fully realized due to the fragmented command chain within the pandemic bureaucracy. We discuss the prospects of continued personalization under the Yoon administration via personnel management in the pandemic bureaucracy.

Despite China's growing participation and accession to international human rights treaties, there exists a wide perception that China violates international human rights norms. When empirically assessing whether China adheres to international human rights norms outlined in international human rights law, we find that there is variation across treaties and across time—China shows relatively higher adherence to norms pertaining to gender equality, economic rights, social and cultural rights, compared to rights to freedom from torture. Improvements in adherence to gender equality, economic rights, social and cultural rights have shown relative improvement over time compared to rights to freedom from torture due to previous efforts to improve welfare under Hu-Wen administration (2002–2012). We additionally find that the variation in adherence across treaties stems from China's distinct human rights norms, which prioritize economic development and national sovereignty over indivisibility of human rights. Our findings contribute to furthering existing understanding of China's relationship with the international human rights regime.

What are the long-term effects of authoritarian repression on political trust in a post-democratization context? Using the Gwangju Massacre in South Korea as a case study, this article finds that indirect and direct experience of state-perpetrated violence of the critical-period cohort—who were aged 17–25 during the incident—can have long-term negative effects on trust levels towards the government. Difference-in-difference analysis of national survey data collected in 2008 and 2012 reveals that experience with violence has long-term negative consequences on government trust. Results are robust even when including significant covariates of institutional theories and cultural theories, such as interpersonal trust, evaluation of government performance, as well as satisfaction with the economy. Drawing from memory studies, this article argues that the effects are due to collective memory formed during the critical period.

This chapter traces Chinese official discourse and regulatory frameworks concerning civil society, scrutinizing their impact on the evolution of the Chinese third sector and their broader implications for China’s governance. The analysis unfolds over two distinct eras – the Hu Era (2002–2012) and the Xi Era (2013–present) – delving into how the Party-state strategically shapes the narrative and policies of civil society. The chapter incorporates a qualitative narrative analysis of Party publications and state documents and an examination of empirical case studies. The chapter not only sheds light on the adaptation of the Party-state to maintain control over the growing third sector but also unveils the nuanced interplay between official discourse and political practice. It also offers insights into the potential trajectory of China’s future civil society governance.

What explains the expansion of the NGO sector among authoritarian states in recent decades? Why do authoritarian states repress civil society yet are favorable to certain types of NGOs – the service-oriented NGOs? Using controlled case comparisons of three post-communist authoritarian states – Russia, Kazakhstan, and Belarus, this article demonstrates that NGO sector expansion – particularly the introduction of NGO outsourcing, has been introduced with the policies of welfare liberalization. The antecedent to welfare liberalization can be traced to different political economic pressures that have emerged after the Soviet disintegration. The article contributes to the understanding of the emerging convergence of paradoxical approach towards the NGO sector among authoritarian states which marks a dual strategy of repression of certain sectors – the rights-based groups and co-optation of service-oriented NGOs.

Studies on civil society in China has suffered from a positivist bias where civil society is often conceptualized as the NGO sector. This conceptualization dismisses cultural and social contexts that distinguishes the how the concept of civil society is used and discussed in China. By leveraging a large corpus of text data and computational text analysis on scholarly articles on civil society in China from 2002 to 2021 and public discussions on the concept of civil society on online forums and social media, this article aims to uncover the major conceptual discussions on civil society in China and highlight how they differ from conceptualizations in western political thought.

What are the narratives on China in South Korea since the normalization of two countries in 1992? Drawing from computational analysis of scholarly articles, op-eds, and polls, this paper presents a descriptive picture of narratives on China in South Korea put forward by different sectors of the society - the elites, masses, and the scholars. The finding shows that while scholarly narratives in South Korea towards China have remained balanced, within domestic politics the narrative towards China has become increasingly polarized in the post-2015 period. Factors contributing to this polarization include China’s hawkish response to South Korea’s foreign policy choices, most evidently demonstrated during the THAAD dispute. Other recent issues include the COVID-19 which has sparked debate at the elite level on whether weak enforcement of border controls towards travelers from China demonstrate lack of sovereignty and an overt pro-China attitude by then incumbent Moon administration.

How does China signal foreign policy intentions to domestic and international audience during territorial conflicts? While China can signal its resolve by provoking nationalism at home, doing so may risk appearing threatening to neighboring countries in the region. We argue that China resolves the dilemma by sending different types of messages to domestic and international audiences. Focusing on China’s maritime conflicts in the South China Sea and the East China Sea, we examine China’s narratives regarding the maritime disputes through the analysis of state-run media. Our findings from text mining and topic analyses of more than 31,000 state media reports from 2002 to 2021 suggest that China signals to the international audience on international cooperation emphasizing diplomatic and peaceful resolutions while relatively less in domestic media. The analyses have implications on how China signals foreign policy intentions amidst rising nationalism.

We introduce a novel dataset mapping career transitions of 505 elites in North Korea. Despite ample attention to granular data on elites, there's a lack of comprehensive information spanning state, party, military, and parastatal sectors. Granular rank and position data enable tracing intra- and inter-institutional elite mobility, opening new research avenues on North Korean elite studies and leader-elite dynamics in personalist autocracies. Exploiting within-regime threat level variation during successions, we test hypotheses on dictators' use of intra- versus inter-institutional elite management. We conclude with implications for new research directions in North Korean studies and authoritarianism literature.