Changing manners of displaying loyalties through ideological campaigns in post-deng China

Ideological campaigns in post-Deng China have a strategic function of discerning loyalties of local leaders. Previous empirical studies have found that Jiang Zemin’s followers are more likely to echo Jiang’s ideological campaigns. Through a content analysis of provincial newspapers between 2005 and 2012, this study suggests that the manner of displaying loyalties has completely changed. By employing a panel-corrected standard errors (PCSE) estimation, this study finds that protégés of both Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin are less likely to echo their patron’s ideological campaigns, suggesting the shifting function of ideological campaigns from monitoring identified followers’ loyalties to recruiting new followers. This article argues that this is a result of changing elite politics and—more importantly—the different strategic use of ideological campaigns. © 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.