Big Tigers, Big Data: learning social reactions to China's unprecedented Anticorruption Campaign through online feedbacks

Abstract

Corruption, commonly defined as the abuse of public office for private gain (Nye 1967), undermines the economy, public trust in government, and regime legitimacy (Seligson 2002; Villoria, Ryzin, and Lavena 2013). Governments sometimes, to combat corruption, launch intensive campaigns (e.g. Manion 2004; Quah 1999), which involve extraordinary mobilization of administrative resources under strong political sponsorship (Liu, Lo, Zhan, and Wang 2015). In addition to strengthening regulatory enforcement, governments during anticorruption campaigns also aim to signal commitment against corruption and boost pubic support. While existing literature often focuses on evaluating the campaign effectiveness in terms of increasing policy compliance (e.g. Wedeman 2005), not much research has studied how well intensive anticorruption campaigns can help government win popular support. We attempt to fill ...