Political Attention in a Single-Leading-Party State: A Comparative Study of the Policy Agenda in China, 2003–2019

This article explores the political attention of an authoritarian regime from a comparative perspective. Data from daily meetings of the Chinese Communist Party and the State Council from 2003 to 2019 reveal the punctuated characteristics of China’s macropolitical agenda, which is less intensely punctuated than those in democracies. Further, in the absence of party competition and power balance, the authoritarian party uses the “leading group mechanism” to strengthen its leadership’s agenda since this mechanism helps expand the party’s capacity to address governance challenges. Thus, authoritarian resilience must be considered when using political attention theory to analyze China’s agenda-setting pattern.

Recommended citation: Yan, Y., Yang, Z., & Yuan, C. (2021). "Political Attention in a Single-Leading-Party State: A Comparative Study of the Policy Agenda in China, 2003–2019." Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice. 24(2).
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