Thread by @neilthomas123

THREAD: Excited to share @MacroPoloChina piece with new research funding data

Ace work is done on China's hard science R&D but as a qualitative researcher I was like what about the soft stuff!?

So I made a dataset on the National Social Science Fund (1/) macropolo.org/china-marxist-…

The NSSF is Beijing's flagship program for social science research grants. It's run by an office in the Party's propaganda department that answers to director Huang Kunming. Xi Jinping wants the NSSF to fund more pro-Party scholarship that increases its "discourse power" (2/)

Xi's drive to build "social sciences with Chinese characteristics" has coincided with a 44.3% 5-year increase in social science funding.

NSSF outlays rose from 1.8 billion yuan in 2015 to 2.6 billion yuan in 2019.

Total NSSF projects rose from 503 in 1993 to 5463 in 2020. (3/)

Since Xi became leader in 2012 the NSSF grant disciplines w/biggest % increases are:

1) Marxism & Scientific Socialism

2) Ethnic Studies

3) Party History & Party Building

These reflect Xi's focus on ideological control, harsh new ethnic policies & Party revitalization. (4/)

NSSF funding also focused to an unprecedented degree on Xi himself, helping consolidate his power.

I looked at projects with a title including the name or signature ideology of Party leaders.

Far more work is being done to embed Xi’s ideology than was done for Hu or Jiang (5/)

Bonus Chart!

As a % of all National Social Science Fund projects, those focused on Xi Jinping were a whopping ~8% in 2018, before falling to 4.7% in 2019 and 3.2% in 2020.

Grants on Mao and Deng still appear occasionally..

But no projects on Hu or Jiang for many years. (6/)

The data above suggest that under Xi the Party is increasingly shifting resources & incentives toward social science that directly advances political goals, like to build intellectual support for the “path, theory, and system” of Party rule. (7/End)

macropolo.org/china-marxist-…