To bolster its legitimacy, China's authoritarian regime has launched numerous anticorruption campaigns. Many of these anticorruption campaigns seemed tainted by intra-elite competition and only effective at deterring low- and mid-level cadres (i.e., ‘flies’). Yet, Xi's campaign differs notably from previous ones in his targeting of senior officials (i.e., ‘tigers’) and introduction of institutional changes. By integrating anti-corruption data with three waves of nationwide surveys conducted in 36 major cities in China (2011, 2012, and 2015), we explore and compare the impacts of anti-corruption campaigns on popular political support under Hu and Xi. Our analysis shows that the overall popular support has declined steadily overtime, despite the positive effects of Xi's anti-corruption campaign. Specifically, ordinary Chinese did react positively to Xi's anticorruption campaign. Xi's campaign, particularly his crackdown on ‘tigers,’ increased people's trust in the central government. However, the campaign fell short in restoring the decline of central and local government legitimacy.

Previous studies had no consensus on whether a ‘mandate-divide’ exists between district and party-list legislators under the mixed-member system. I argued that previous studies ignored the role of the party. This article aims to explore the legislative consequences of the 2005 electoral reform and the role of parties in Taiwan. I analyzed the roll-call votes, considering abstention and absence as potential defection, along with interviews. The data cover from the fifth to eighth Legislative Yuan, two periods each before and after the electoral reform. The findings show that district legislators tended to defect from the party line than list proportional representation (PR) members in pre- and post-reform periods. However, district legislators only tended to be absent from the voting than list PR members after the electoral reform. Mandate-divide was present throughout the period, but differences were more salient before the reform. Besides, evidence stressing the influence of parties was revealed in the interviews. Party leaders enforce various punishments to enforce party discipline. The role of party became more important after the electoral reform. District legislators have higher absence rate after the electoral reform because they need to engage more in constituency service or avoid expressing their position on controversial issues. The ruling party tends to sanction the absence when they have majority in parliament.

This study examines the attitudinal and behavioral consequences of holding local elections in China. Using survey data to test the propositions that elections do not alleviate pressure from society butreasonably make state–society conflict manageable for the Chinese Communist regime, evidence suggests that being aware of elections is negatively associated with citizens' involvement in collective activities that would destabilize the regime. Instead, the awareness of elections is positively correlated with people's willingness to use the institutionalized mechanism, letters and visits (shangfang), to solve their concerns. The findings imply that although elections may help buttress China's authoritarian rule, the survivability of the Chinese Communist Party is still dependent on whether existing institutions can function well in reducing public grievances.

Under what conditions do policy disagreements cause parties to split? Before the general elections in 2017 in Japan, the Minshin, the largest opposition party, split, and the major opposition camp collapsed into three parties. Disagreement about defense policy was rapidly politicized by the founding leader of a new party, Hope. Some members were motivated to switch to Hope and split the Minshin. Why did the disagreement about defense policy, which had long existed but was inactive, become an issue that led to a major split? To answer these questions, we used Aldrich–Mckelvey and Blackbox transpose scalings to analyze the data from an expert survey about issue positions and the salience of party policies. The variance in experts' responses was also examined to consider whether parties consistently and clearly distinguish their policy positions. Party positions on defense policy were clearly distinguished and revealed a split among splinter parties. However, the party positions clearly converged on the environment, decentralization, and other policies in a two-dimensional space, which indicated the unity of the major opposition camp. Moreover, different item functioning (DIF) analysis revealed a high variance (i.e., negative weight) on the issue salience of defense policy, which indicated its politicization immediately before the split. Overall results indicated that the politicization of defense policy contributed to weakening party cohesion and the party was split over disagreement about it. This implies that party switching is caused by policy disagreement but also hinges critically on which policy is politicized as an issue for party unity.

In this research note we examine the impacts of legislators' age on their representational behavior in Hong Kong by conducting content analyses of the questions raised by members of the Hong Kong legislature (LegCo) at the plenary meetings from 1998 to 2016. We explore whether young legislators were more likely than older legislators to represent youth interests. Our results show that legislators' age did not significantly affect their representational behavior. We propose three factors of this null finding. The first concerns the relatively low voter turnout among young people in Hong Kong. The second is related to the career incentives of legislators in authoritarian legislature. The last factor is the political affiliation of young legislators in Hong Kong.

In 2009, after decades of single party rule under the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), Japan had its first taste of a real alteration of power. However, just 3 years later, the LDP regained control of government with no significant challenger in sight. Historically, LDP dominance is a common tale, but its resurgence in recent years poses a significant puzzle in Japanese politics. What exactly has contributed to the LDP's return to power? In the years that have passed, the LDP's strength has come from a combination of cash, clientelistic networks, and strong candidates, but recent research has found that Japanese politics has become more programmatic and party-focused. While LDP dominance since its return to power in 2012 can be attributed in part to its candidates, I find that the appeal of the party label has played a large role in securing the LDP's large majorities.