IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/osfxxx/jrqyu_v1.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How does an authoritarian state co-opt its social scientists studying civil society?

Author

Listed:
  • Ma, Ji

    (The University of Texas at Austin)

Abstract

What channels can an authoritarian state employ to steer social science research towards topics preferred by the regime? I researched the Chinese coauthor network of civil society studies, examining 14,088 researchers and their peer-reviewed journal articles published between 1998 and 2018. Models with individual and time fixed-effects reveal that scholars at the center of the network closely follow the narratives of the state's policy plans and could serve as effective state agents. However, those academics who connect different intellectual communities tend to pursue novel ideas deviating from the official narratives. Funding is an ineffective direct means for co-opting individual scholars, possibly because it is routed through institutions. Combining these findings, this study proposes a preliminary formation of authoritarian knowledge regime that consists of (1) the state's official narrative, (2) institutionalized state sponsorship, (3) co-opted intellectuals centrally embedded in scholarly networks, and (4) intellectual brokers as sources of novel ideas.

Suggested Citation

  • Ma, Ji, 2022. "How does an authoritarian state co-opt its social scientists studying civil society?," OSF Preprints jrqyu_v1, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:jrqyu_v1
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/jrqyu_v1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/62959dfdddbe492ae7a2209c/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/jrqyu_v1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:jrqyu_v1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://osf.io/preprints/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.