Power and Publications in Chinese Academia

It has been well recognized that power distribution plays an important role in economic development. In my research field, political economy, an influential literature emphasizes that political power distribution affects resource allocation, economic production, and consequently the fortunes of a country or a nation (e.g., North 1990, Acemoglu and Robinson 2012 among many others). In contrast, researchers have paid relatively less attention to the impact of power in academia, perhaps believing that in this context, resource allocation should be driven primarily by academic merit. In power-oriented societies, however, academia may not be immune to the influence of power. Analogous to how political power affects economic production, administrative power in academia influences scientific production. This is the point my coauthors and I illustrate in the case of Chinese academia.