Scholars have established that authoritarian regimes exhibit responsiveness to citizens, but our knowledge of why autocrats respond remains limited. We theorize that responsiveness may stem from rules of the institutionalized party regime, citizen engagement, and a strategy of preferential treatment of a narrow group of supporters. We test the implications of our theory using an online experiment among 2,103 Chinese counties. At baseline, we find that approximately one third of county level governments are responsive to citizen demands expressed online. Threats of collective action and threats of tattling to upper levels of government cause county governments to be considerably more responsive. However, while threats of collective action cause local officials more publicly responsive, threats of tattling do not have this effect. We also find that identifying as loyal, long-standing members of the Communists Party does not increase responsiveness.
— Awarded AJPS Best Paper 2016; AJPS Top Cited Articles Virtual Issue, 2018.