Why the fear of the Magna Carta in Beijing? Mayling Birney speaks to BBC Newshour

The Magna Carta exhibit in Beijing was suddenly moved from Renmin University to the British Ambassador’s residence, where few will get to see it. On yesterday’s BBC Newshour, Dr Mayling Birney spoke with James Coomarasamy about why Chinese leaders and Renmin University are so wary of the Magna Carta

Designing authoritarian deliberation: how social media platforms influence political talk in China

Discussion is often celebrated as a critical element of public opinion and political participation. Recently, scholars have suggested that the design and features of specific online platforms shape what is politically expressed online and how. Building on these findings and drawing on 112 semi-structured qualitative interviews with information technology experts and internet users, we explain how major Chinese social media platforms differ in structure and motivation. Drawing upon a nationwide representative survey and an online experiment, we find that platforms aiming to make users a source of information through public, information-centred communication, such as the Twitter-like Weibo, are more conducive to political expression; while platforms built to optimize building social connections through private, user-centred communication, such as WhatsApp and Facebook-like WeChat, tend to inhibit political expression. These technological design effects are stronger when users believe the authoritarian state tolerates discussion, but less important when political talk is sensitive. The findings contribute to the debate on the political consequences of the internet by specifying technological and political conditions

Decentralization and veiled corruption under China's "rule of mandates"

This paper shows why corruption is especially difficult to detect under China’s system of decentralized authoritarian rule, which I call a “rule of mandates.” Local officials must pursue high priority political targets but have immense discretion over which laws to implement. A relative standard for corruption consequently arises since non-implementation of laws may be mandate-serving or may be corrupt; and determining which requires extra information on why non-implementation occurred. The theory is supported by evidence from original survey and case research on the implementation of the village elections law. I discuss implications for anticorruption efforts, development patterns, and future research