Events

Ideas Mobilize People: The Diffusion of Communist Ideology in China

Can ideas mobilize people into collective action? Ying Bai of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and his co-authors investigate this question by analyzing how exposure to Communist ideology shaped an individual’s decision to join the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during its formative stage. Their study focuses on cadets at the Whampoa Military Academy, who played crucial roles in China’s major 20th-century conflicts. Their identification strategy leverages the locality-time-content variation in the circulation of the New Youth magazine—the primary platform promoting Communism following the Treaty of Versailles in 1919—and the variation in an individual’s location over time. Comparing Whampoa cadets living in a locality with access to post-1919 New Youth against those who lived in the same locality but missed this channel, they find that the former were significantly more likely to join the CCP, and that this party choice was consequential in subsequent conflicts. They also find that family background did not predict party choice, but that social networks complemented ideology exposure. In this Quantitative History Webinar, Ying Bai will present their analyses of other periodicals and organizations that support post-1919 New Youth’s role as a proxy for Communism penetration in a locality.

Ying’s co-authors: Ruixue Jia (UC San Diego) and Runnan Wang (Chinese University of Hong Kong)

Discussant: Debin Ma (Oxford)

Live on Zoom on April 27, 2023
16:00 Hong Kong/Beijing/Singapore
09:00 London | 17:00 Tokyo | 18:00 Sydney

The Quantitative History (QH) Webinar Series aims to provide researchers, teachers, and students with an online intellectual platform to keep up to date with the latest research in the field, promoting the dissemination of research findings and interdisciplinary use of quantitative methods in historical research. The QH Webinar Series, now entering its fourth year, is co-organized by Centre for Quantitative History at the HKU Business School and International Society for Quantitative History in partnership with Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences. The Series is now substantially supported by the Areas of Excellence (AoE) Scheme from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (Project No. [AoE/B-704/22-R]). 量化歷史網上講座系列由香港大學陳志武和馬馳騁教授聯合發起，旨在介紹前沿量化歷史研究成果、促進同仁交流，推廣量化方法在歷史研究中的應用。本系列講座由香港大學經管學院量化歷史研究中心和國際量化歷史學會承辦，及香港人文社會研究所全力支持。從2023年開始，系列得到中國香港特別行政區研究資助局卓越學科領域計劃的重要資助 (項目編號[AoE/B-704/22-R])。

Conveners:
Professor Zhiwu Chen
Dr. Chicheng Ma