This study asks how punishment of corruption shapes public support under authoritarian rule and tests two mechanisms: that punishment signals government capacity (instrumental) and that it signals moral commitment (deontological). Using an experimental mediation design embedded in a series of conjoint experiments in China, the authors present individual-level evidence about citizens’ evaluations of local officials who punish corrupt subordinates.
Data and methods
The paper reports results from a novel experimental design for mediation analysis, implemented as a series of conjoint experiments in China. The design examines how information about local officials’ anticorruption punishment affects respondents’ views and decomposes the mechanisms linking punishment to evaluations.
Conjoint experiments Mediation-focused experimental design
Main findings
Respondents in the study view local officials who punish corrupt subordinates more positively. The authors report that this positive evaluation is associated with perceptions that those officials are both more competent and more morally committed to citizens’ values. The abstract notes that the preference for anticorruption punishment is substantial compared with other potential sources of support in authoritarian settings, such as economic performance, welfare provision, and institutions for political participation.
- Positive evaluation of officials who punish corrupt subordinates.
- Mechanisms: perceived competence (state capacity) and perceived moral commitment.
Qualifications and scope
All claims in this brief are drawn from the article abstract: the evidence comes from individual-level experimental data collected in China and the mediation design described in the abstract. The brief does not report additional results, numerical estimates, or claims beyond what the abstract explicitly states.
