Book Project
“China’s Controlled Burn: Information management and state-society relations under authoritarianism.” Under contract with Cambridge University Press.
Overview: This book examines how China’s leaders have managed political participation in the post-Deng period. Vertical flows of information upward to top leaders improves governance and control of both society and local state actors. Horizontal flows of information from citizen to citizen facilitate political challenges and instability. This tradeoff is examined in the context of popular protests, journalism, and in political openness more broadly conceived. This framework offers insight into China’s increased tolerance of protests and investigative journalism post-Deng Xiaoping as well as the decline in tolerance under Xi Jinping.
Working Papers
- “Personal Ties, Meritocracy, and China’s Anti-Corruption Campaign,” with Xi Lu.
- Two-minute video from VoxDev
- Steve Hsu’s Manifold Podcast. Kaiser Kuo of Sinica discusses my paper (and much else).
- Interview with Walt Hickey on Numlock News
- Cory Doctorow: “Using data science to evaluate whether Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption sweeps were really about consolidating power.” Boingboing blog
- “La controversa crociata anti mazzette di Xi Jinping.” La Repubblica, (January 28, 2019)
- “Countering Liberation Technology: The Internet and Media Freedom in Autocracies,” with Sara Newland.
Published Research
- Lorentzen, Peter. 2017. “Designing Contentious Politics in Post-1989 China.” Modern China.
- Denise van der Kamp, Peter Lorentzen, and Daniel Mattingly. 2017. “Racing to the Bottom or to the Top? Decentralization, Revenue Pressures, and Governance Reform in China.” World Development.
- Lorentzen, Peter, M. Taylor Fravel, and Jack Paine. 2017. “Qualitative Investigation of Theoretical Models: The Value of Process Tracing.” Journal of Theoretical Politics.
- Related Audio: Roundtable discussion on Formal Models and Qualitative Evidence at the Midwest Political Science Association 2017 Annual Meeting. Panelists were Hein Goemans, Ben Lessing, Andrew Little, Peter Lorentzen, Monika Nalepa, and John Patty. Other audience members who contributed to the vigorous discussion included Scott Gehlbach, Anne Meng, and Terence Teo.
- Followup essay by Jack Paine (with Scott Tyson): Uses and Abuses of Formal Models in Political Science.
- Chong, Jessica, Joon-Ho Yu, Peter Lorentzen, Karen Park, Seema M Jamal, Holly K Tabor, Anita Rauch, Margarita Sifuentes Saenz, Eugen Boltshauser, Karynne E Patterson, Deborah A Nickerson, University of Washington Center for Mendelian Geno, Michael J Bamshad. 2016. “Gene discovery for Mendelian conditions via social networking: de novo variants in KDM1A cause developmental delay and distinctive facial features,” Genetics in Medicine, vol. 18: 788-795.
- NPR coverage, Seattle Times coverage
- The MyGene2 genetic data sharing platform that emerged from this project.
- Lorentzen, Peter, and Suzanne Scoggins. 2015. “Understanding China’s Rising Rights Consciousness.” The China Quarterly, vol. 223: 638-657.
- Chinese Abstract: 摘要
- Related op-ed piece in The Diplomat.
- Lorentzen, Peter. 2014. “China’s Strategic Censorship.” American Journal of Political Science, vol. 58(2): 402-414.
- Lorentzen, Peter, Pierre Landry, and John Yasuda. 2014. “Undermining authoritarian innovation: The power of China’s industrial giants.” The Journal of Politics, vol. 76(1): 182-194.
- Lorentzen, Peter. 2013. “Regularizing Rioting: Permitting Public Protest in an Authoritarian Regime.” Quarterly Journal of Political Science, vol. 8(2): 127-158.
- “Researching Discontent: Here’s Why a Regime May Need—and Secretly Want—Protests.” California Magazine (Spring 2015)
- “Under the Knife: Why Chinese patients are turning against their doctors.” The New Yorker (August 25, 2014)
- “Why Protests Can Be Good for Dictators.” Slate (blog) (August 23, 2013)
- “Do China’s Village Protests Help the Regime?” The New York Review of Books (blog) (December, 2011)
- Lorentzen, Peter, John McMillan, and Romain Wacziarg. 2008. “Death and Development.” Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 13(2): 81-124.
- Henry, Peter Blair and Peter Lorentzen. 2003. “Domestic Capital Market Reform and Access to Global Finance: Making Markets Work” in Michael Pomerleano, Robert Litan, and V. Sundararajan,eds. The Future of Domestic Capital Markets in Developing Countries, Brookings.
bOOK rEVIEWS
- Lorentzen, Peter. 2018. Ya-Wen Lei, The Contentious Public Sphere: Law, Media, and Authoritarian Rule in China. Book Review in The China Quarterly
- Lorentzen, Peter. 2018. Maria Repnikova, Media Politics in China: Improvising Power Under Authoritarianism. Book Review in the Journal of Chinese Political Science.
Media Mentions
- “La controversa crociata anti mazzette di Xi Jinping.” La Repubblica, (January 28, 2019)
- Interview with Walt Hickey on Numlock News (January 13, 2019) (gated)
- “Purged.” Numlock News (November 28, 2019)
- “Using data science to evaluate whether Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption sweeps were really about consolidating power.” Boingboing blog (November 26, 2019)
- “Cambridge University Press Removes Articles From Chinese Website.” Wall Street Journal (August 18, 2017)
- “Making Chinese Officials Accountable, Blog by Blog.” Boston Review (September 27, 2016)
- “Stirrings of Hope for Families Isolated by Rarest of Genetic Conditions.” KQEDscience: Future of You (May 31, 2016)
- “Needle in the genetic haystack: How a new UW website is helping families, scientists.” The Seattle Times (May 7, 2016)
- “China’s Rumor Mill: Why Beijing Is Cracking Down on “Unverified” Information Online.” Foreign Affairs (October 6, 2015).
- “A Chinese Rights Revolution Reversed?” The Diplomat (August 21, 2015)
- “Researching Discontent: Here’s Why a Regime May Need—and Secretly Want—Protests.” California Magazine (Spring 2015)
- “Under the Knife: Why Chinese patients are turning against their doctors.” The New Yorker (August 25, 2014)
- “The Surprising Way in Which China Censors the Internet” Popular Mechanics (August 21, 2014)
- “Why Protests Can Be Good for Dictators.” Slate (blog) (August 23, 2013)
- “Do China’s Village Protests Help the Regime?” The New York Review of Books (blog) (December, 2011)