Working Paper: NBER ID: w30947
Authors: Ying Bai; Ruixue Jia; Runnan Wang
Abstract: Can ideas mobilize people into collective action? We provide a positive answer to this question by studying how exposure to the Communist ideology shaped an individual’s choice to join the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during the party’s formative stage. The individuals we focus on are cadets at the Whampoa Military Academy, who subsequently fought in 20th-century China’s most important wars. Our identification strategy exploits the locality-time-content variation in the circulation of the New Youth magazine—the major platform to promote Communism after the Treaty of Versailles in 1919—as well as the variation in an individual’s location over time. By comparing the Whampoa cadets living in a locality with post-1919 New Youth available against those who had lived in the same locality but missed this channel, we demonstrate that the former were significantly more likely to join the CCP. In future political struggles, those whose party choice was more influenced by this ideology channel were less likely to quit the CCP and more likely to sacrifice their lives. Additionally, we document that family background cannot predict the party choice of these political pioneers but social networks can complement ideology exposure.
Keywords: Communist ideology; Collective action; Political mobilization; China; New Youth magazine
JEL Codes: D70; D71; D83; N45; O12; P30
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| exposure to the 'New Youth' magazine (Y30) | likelihood of joining the CCP (D70) |
| county-level exposure to the 'New Youth' magazine (Y30) | likelihood of joining the CCP (D70) |
| exposure to the 'New Youth' magazine (Y30) | decisions influenced by ideology (D70) |
| decisions influenced by ideology (D70) | likelihood to quit the CCP (J63) |
| decisions influenced by ideology (D70) | likelihood to sacrifice lives during political struggles (P26) |
| pre-existing demand for communism in localities (P30) | likelihood of joining the CCP (D70) |