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Partisan culture, identity and corruption: An experiment based on the Chinese Communist Party

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  • He, Haoran
  • Jiang, Shuguang

Abstract

We conduct a lab experiment to investigate the impact of partisan culture and identity on corruption behavior based on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Subjects are randomly assigned to a prime condition that increases the salience of the CCP partisan concept or to a control condition in which the partisan concept is not made salient. Our results show that when acting as public officials, subjects in the priming condition demand significantly lower bribes than in the control condition. Moreover, when subjects are differentiated by their natural partisan identity as CCP members or non-members, we find that non-members are even less corrupt in response to partisan concept prime, while the effect of priming on CCP members is insignificant. Our results, combining with additional evidence, suggest that the prevailing CCP partisan culture is generally able to undermine corruption behavior, while the partisan identity itself can work in the opposite direction.

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  • He, Haoran & Jiang, Shuguang, 2020. "Partisan culture, identity and corruption: An experiment based on the Chinese Communist Party," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:chieco:v:60:y:2020:i:c:s1043951x19301634
    DOI: 10.1016/j.chieco.2019.101402
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Corruption; Partisan culture; Partisan identity; Chinese communist party; Experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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