Faced with Information Overload: What Citizen Input Receives Leaders’ Attention in Authoritarian China

Authoritarian regimes use participatory institutions to gather information from citizens, but the gathered information is often overwhelming. To examine what receives leaders’ attention amid this overload, we analyzed communications from two Chinese e-government platforms that published local Party and government heads’ written instructions (pishi) in response to individual citizen submissions. After classifying them using supervised machine learning, we found that these leaders placed greater emphasis on policy areas such as malfeasance, welfare, labor, environment, and business. They also focused more on citizen complaints and suggestions than inquiries. These findings highlight the types of input political leaders prioritize in authoritarian regimes.