Young Researcher Workshop: How AI Affects Bureaucratic Control in Autocracies: A New Theory and Evidence from China

How AI Affects Bureaucratic Control in Autocracies: A New Theory and Evidence from China

Speaker: Jason Luo, PhD Candidate in Political Science, Stanford University

Does the adoption of emerging information technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) always enhance centralized control in authoritarian regimes? In this talk, I introduce a new theory of how state adoption of emerging information technologies affects principal-agent dynamics within bureaucracies, and how it consequently strengthens or weakens centralized control in autocracies. Empirically, I show that China’s unexpectedly decentralized procurement and management of AI technologies in government operations has amplified pre-existing information asymmetries between the central government and localities, and increased the likelihood of local governments strategically evading central control. Methodologically, I draw on an original dataset of over 31 million central and local government procurement documents from 2002 to 2022. Leveraging a 2015 reporting policy change and a robust design including DiD and event study, I construct the first-of-its-kind measures of local strategic actions aimed at evading central oversight. I find that local state investment in AI technologies is significantly associated with more local evasions afterwards, compared with a range of other local-level political and economic factors. This finding challenges the conventional wisdom, showing that the adoption of AI in authoritarian regimes can paradoxically weaken centralized control, particularly when interests of the principals and agents diverge, and when control over technology rests with the local state.

About the Workshops

The SCCEI Young Researcher Workshops are a bi-weekly series of presentations from scholars around campus who are working on issues related to China’s economy and institutions. The aim of the series is to bring together young scholars by providing a platform to present new research, get feedback, exchange ideas, and make connections. Each session features a single presenter who may present a new research plan, share results from preliminary data analyses, or do a trial run of a job talk or conference presentation. The Workshop Series is an opportunity to give and receive feedback on existing research, get to know other researchers around campus who are working on or in China, and be a testing ground for new ideas, data, and presentations.

Workshops are held every other Thursday from 1 - 2 pm. Afternoon refreshments will be provided! 

Visit the Young Researcher Workshops webpage for more information on the content and format of the series and to learn how to sign up to present.