How Political Science Interpretive and Mixed Methods can Deter the Coming Cold War between China and the USA

In a recent paper, published online by the American Political Science Association preprint service and Cambridge University Press [1], I showed that there are three key standards for assessing the goodness of any political system. The first is that the social interactions under consideration fit the definition of a “political system,” as defined by David Easton. That is, behavior undertaken in relation to the authoritative allocation of values.

The second standard is that of the system’s operational goodness. That is, its efficiency and effectiveness at the allocation of values.

The third standard is the way people living in the system feel about their experience in it. That is, population affect. Assessing that affect requires the political scientist to focus on the politically relevant feelings of the people, especially what Easton means by the term “political happiness.” [2] The paper shows why, within this interpretive framework, population affect is the most important index of a political system’s goodness.

This approach grounds the assessment of goodness in the empirical examination of facts. The factual study of a people’s political feelings requires the use of interpretive and mixed political science methods, as opposed to assessing “goodness” with lofty, but vaguely defined, philosophical ideals like “democracy,” “socialism,” “liberty,” “justice,” etc. In other words, how the people living in a political system authentically feel about their experience in it is a more sensitive and salient measure of a system’s goodness than determining how well a system’s formal institutions conform to some preferred philosophical ideal.

In this post, I will sketch out what such a study might look like, and argue that such studies can influence both foreign and domestic policy making.

Political Happiness in Comparison

How authentically satisfied people are with life in their political system is, as mentioned, an empirical question. Large surveys can be helpful for gathering an overview. But to evaluate the authenticity of self-reports about political satisfaction requires the methods of interpretive and mixed methods political science. These methods bring the political scientist closer to the subjects where nonverbal clues to authenticity, or its opposite, fear based dissembling, can be detected.

Of the many pre-COVID studies of Chinese attitudes and opinion, for example, just a few recent ones will be cited as indicators of Chinese political sentiments. The first is by Leizhen Zang, of the School of Public Policy and Management, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. [3]

Zang’s study found that, among other things, “China’s middle class’s trust in governments has increased. For example, in China, trust in the national government reaches 97% and trust in local governments is at 79%. [Also,] 82.56% of the Chinese middle class are proud of their state and 82.83% of them are willing to continue living in China.” While “Internet use is regulated by the government to a certain extent in China …  49% of the Chinese middle class … still have accesses to more information, especially negative news about the Chinese government.” Yet, studies show that “they do not have the willingness to promote political changes.” Indeed, “more than half of the respondents state that their system of government does not need to be changed.”

Zang finds that, “Chinese citizens are willing to place trust on their national government, with the proportion reaching 93% …” [4]

Harvard Study

A 2016 Harvard study of Chinese public opinion found that, “95.5 percent of respondents were either ‘relatively satisfied’ or ‘highly satisfied’ with Beijing.” [5] The authors note that in “contrast to these findings, Gallup reported in January of this year that their latest polling on US citizen satisfaction with the American federal government revealed only 38 percent of respondents were satisfied with the federal government.” 

The authors doubt that the Chinese responses are based on fear or propaganda.  “Although state censorship and propaganda are widespread in China, these findings highlight that citizen perceptions of governmental performance respond most to real, measurable changes in individuals’ material well-being.” The authors explain their assessment that these responses are authentic by noting that “China is still a developing country … We tend to forget that for many in China, and in their lived experience of the past four decades, each day was better than the next.”

In addition, material conditions alone do not account for political satisfaction in China. “The surveys found that rural residents, generally poorer than those in cities, had more optimistic attitudes about inequality than their wealthier urban counterparts.” The authors conclude, “Our surveys show that many in China therefore seem to be much more satisfied with government performance over time, despite rising inequality, corruption, and a range of other pressures that are the result of the reform era.” [6]

Pew Research

A Pew Research study found that, on balance, “the Chinese public is optimistic” about the likely improvement of particular politically relevant conditions.  “A 64% majority believes corruption will lessen over the next five years; only 19% think it will get worse.” However, “40% think the gap between rich and poor will get better, while 37% expect it to grow worse.” [7]

“The public is also optimistic about the long-term economic future. Roughly eight-in-ten (82%) [Chinese] think that when children in the country today grow up they will be financially better off than their parents.” On that measure, the Pew researchers comment that the Chinese “positive outlook stands in stark contrast to the pessimism found in the United States and much of Europe.”

Indeed, far from wanting political change, “roughly three-quarters (77%) of Chinese believe that their way of life needs to be protected against foreign influence.” Especially that of the US.

“Fully 45% of Chinese see U.S. power and influence as posing a major threat to their country. Such concern is up from 39% in 2013.” [8]

US Bellicosity

The election of Donald Trump in 2016 exposed, among other things, the rage many of his supporters feel toward the federal government. The January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol Building, largely by Trump supporters, revealed an intense lack of trust in the US election processes. There is little political happiness among the nearly 75M Trump voters, and they are almost a quarter of the US population.

In the 2016 campaign, Trump characterized China as “raping” the United States by its one-sided trade deals. [9] Was he demonizing China to offer it as a scapegoat for the rage of his supporters?

Towards the end of the Trump administration, General Mark Milley was very worried that the unpredictable and bellicose President might launch a first strike on China. To try to avert a nuclear disaster, he called his military counterpart in China and promised that he would warn them before any military actions were taken. [10] Trump imagined that he had popular support for such a move. But Trump is not alone in his attitude towards China.

US Popular Thinking about International Relations

A recent post on 538 is entitled “When It Comes to China, Biden Sounds a Lot Like Trump.”

The article leads with, “To understand why Biden’s approach to China is often considered ‘Trump 2.0,’ it’s important to first establish Americans’ attitudes toward China. Broadly speaking, Americans of all political stripes don’t view the country favorably.” [11, 12]

In my view, this attitude suggests that, while the relationship is complex, China as a “communist system” and a potential “enemy” is getting far more press than China as fellow human beings who have had World Historic success at building their country, lifting nearly a billion souls out of poverty, without the conquest of other people, and who want to protect and continue improving their nation. This alternative understanding could help mitigate the fear needed for the US military-industrial complex to fuel a Cold War with mendacious propaganda.

Political science can lead the way in re-educating Americans to see China differently.

As the politically relevant feelings of a people become the standard of comparison between political systems, the call for an arms build-up as protection from a China demonized by the Masters of War will seem ridiculous. Such self-serving propaganda will lose its effect as Americans come to envision the Chinese as just people who are trying to make a better life for themselves and their posterity through the improvements of their own political system.

Relations between the US and all the countries in the world will surely be effected by this shift in perception, but the change in the relations between the US and China is urgent.

CONCLUSION

In this post I have offered a general sketch of what a comparative study of the political happiness in different political systems might look like. My thesis is that the study of the politically relevant feelings of folks in one political system can have a humanizing effect on their image in the public opinion of rival political systems. This would require, of course, that the media publicize the research results.

From the point of view of interpretive political science, as opposed to some philosophical ideal, this cursory assessment of public satisfaction and optimism among the Chinese, about their political system, seems to cast this potential Cold War rival in a new light. Whatever the formal structures of their governing institutions, levels of political happiness seem to vary greatly from what one would expect given the “Communist threat” propaganda coming from the Masters of War. Far from being demons, the Chinese are as human as we are, and perhaps politically happier than we are.

Cold War propaganda pits system against system, and diminishes the humanity of “the enemy.” The image of that “communist system over there, run by fanatics who want to impose their system on all the world,” reduces the Chinese to the status of “mad fiends.” But if the US media publicized the truer political science image of the Chinese as folks who want to better their lives through the improvement of their political system, the fiendish images would not take hold.

Think of how absurd it would be for US Hawks to cry, “the Chinese are happier than we are, we must prepare for war!”

Imagine, instead, the US in a competition with China to out cultivate the political happiness of its people. When political systems are assessed for their goodness, rivals will not seek one another’s destruction, but will look for ways to make themselves better than their competitors.

Political science can lead the way in this effort by producing studies of comparative political satisfaction, and then publicizing the results. The public conversation will turn to finding ways to improve their systems. Through this effort, the propaganda proclaiming that “China is a threat to democracy and the world order,” can be displaced by the call for raising the political satisfaction of Americans so that it surpasses the levels which the Chinese enjoy.

While there are numerous studies of happiness in general, the comparative study of specifically political satisfaction as a measure of a political system’s goodness is yet to be done. Of course, a much more methodologically sophisticated study than this one must be done before the hypotheses suggested here – that when the image of other people is humanized, they become less of a threat – can be falsified or substantiated. But at least this post can offer interpretivist and mixed methods research a new direction in which to pursue truth, and show how the APSA can play more of a meaningful role in the world.

William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.

@InterpretivePo1

ENDNOTES

1. Normative Political Science – How to Measure the Goodness of a Political System -

https://preprints.apsanet.org/engage/apsa/article-details/610077128804435530e40d32

2. For David Easton's meaning of the term “political happiness,” see, Ibid., pages 1-5f.

3. Zang, L. (2020). Middle Class and Its Attitude Toward Government in Different Political Systems: A Comparison of China and Japan. Chinese Political Science Review, 5(1), 74–94. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41111-018-0115-1

Following a standard questionnaire, interviews were conducted in local languages.

4. Quotes from Zang in Section 3.1. Page numbers not available online.

5. Taking China’s Pulse: Ash Center research team unveils findings from long-term public opinion survey. Dan Harsha, Ash Center Communications. July 9, 2020

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/07/long-term-survey-reveals-chinese-government-satisfaction/

6. Page numbers for quotes not available online.

7. Chinese Public Sees More Powerful Role in World, Names U.S. as Top Threat. October 5, 2016. Richard Wike and Bruce Stokes.

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2016/10/05/chinese-public-sees-more-powerful-role-in-world-names-u-s-as-top-threat/

8. Page numbers for quotes not available online.

9. See video at, https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000004378852/trump-accuses-china-of-raping-us.html

10. “Top general was so fearful Trump might spark war that he made secret calls to his Chinese counterpart, new book says. ‘Peril,’ by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, reveals that Gen. Mark A. Milley called his Chinese counterpart before the election and after Jan. 6 in a bid to avert armed conflict.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/09/14/peril-woodward-costa-trump-milley-china/

11. When It Comes To China, Biden Sounds A Lot Like Trump. Santul Nerkar.  September 28, 2021

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/when-it-comes-to-china-biden-sounds-a-lot-like-trump/

12. Abuse of the Uyghurs, and other human rights concerns, can be addressed by US policy without threatening military confrontation. Indeed, there likely are no polls asking the Chinese people how they feel about their government’s human rights abuses. The government screens survey research projects before it allows them.