New Socialist Men (and Women)? Communist Industrial Workplace and Political Engagement in China

Many communist regimes have presided over episodes of rapid industrial development, often coupled by the establishment of a planned economic system wherein the state replaces the market as the primary provider of essential resources and services. We argue that life experience under a communist-style industrial workplace fosters a distinct and enduring set of norms and habits that shape how citizens engage with political authorities. Leveraging exogenous variations created by China’s Third Front (TF) campaign, a massive industrial relocation project that moved large-scale industrial-administrative complexes into rural and interior areas between the 1960s–1970s, we show that residents from former TF areas today are more active in contacting the government about personal and community affairs, and hold stronger preferences for state-sponsored participation channels over more contentious ones. Additional analyses suggest that these behavioral patterns are less a strategic response to current local conditions than a result of early socialization. These findings highlight important subnational variations in national communist experiences and underscore the persistent influence of early communist institutions on citizen-government interactions in late communist societies.