🔍 The Puzzle

When autocrats avoid spelling out concrete rules for behavior, how do citizens show political compliance? Prior work predicts that uncertainty pushes risk-averse actors toward self-censorship. This study shows that compliance under such uncertainty is gendered rather than uniform.

📊 Evidence From Interviews, a Global Survey, and an Experiment

• In-depth interviews with Confucius Institute teachers working abroad
• A global survey of teachers operating under broad objectives but no specific political rules
• A controlled experiment testing responses to ambiguous political guidance

These sources focus on Confucius Institute teachers who receive broad objectives from the Chinese state but no explicit rules governing political behavior.

🔑 Key Findings

• Women respond to ambiguity by increasing uncensored discussions, using classroom conversations to persuade host-country students toward the Chinese regime’s point of view.
• Men respond by vociferously defending the party line and by censoring further discussion, shutting down debate rather than expanding it.
• These distinct compliance strategies run counter to a simple uniform self-censorship story and are tied to differing gender socialization: men and women face divergent expectations about how to interact with others.

🔎 Why It Matters

• Reveals that gender shapes not only whether people comply with authoritarian power but how they do so, with implications for measuring compliance and understanding regime influence.
• Suggests that authoritarian outreach (e.g., via Confucius Institutes) can produce gendered patterns of persuasion and silence that affect host-country political discourse.
• Calls for attention to socialization and interaction norms when studying behavior under vague or discretionary authoritarian guidance.