Historical Traumas and the Roots of Political Distrust: Political Inference from the Great Chinese Famine

Historical Traumas and the Roots of Political Distrust: Political Inference from the Great Chinese Famine. Yuyu Chen, David Y. Yang. October 2019. Draft. http://davidyyang.com/pdfs/famine_draft.pdf

Abstract: Political trust is the foundation of authoritarian regimes’ legitimacy, and it is often sustained by propaganda. When does propaganda reach its limit, and what are the consequences when propaganda is falsified? We study the causal effect of the Great Chinese Famine (1958-1961) on survivors’ political distrust. Policy failures led to the Famine, but the propaganda blamed drought for the disaster. Information that directly contradicted the propaganda — experiences of severe Famine in the absence of abnormal drought conditions — was quasi-randomly available to some citizens, but not others. Using a nationally representative survey, we employ a difference-in-differences strategy to compare individuals who were exposed to different intensities of the Famine across regions with different levels of drought during the Famine. The Famine survivors inferred the government’s liability from starvation experiences and the drought conditions, and they were more likely to dismiss the propaganda and blame the government for the Famine if they observed regular weather conditions during the Famine. As a result, these individuals expressed significantly less trust in the government. Costs of falsified propaganda are substantial, since the dampened political trust has turned into a stable political ideology. The distrust persists even half a century after the Famine, has been transmitted to the subsequent generation, and has spilled over to a broad range of political attitudes unrelated to the Famine.

Keywords: Political Trust, Political Attitudes, China, Authoritarian Regime, Persistence
JEL Classification: D83, P26, Z13