Tracking Ideological Changes in an Authoritarian State Using Retweeting Ties: The Case of Chinese Opinion Leaders

While public opinion and ideology can impact political outcomes in an authoritarian state, measuring and tracking its ideological change remains a challenge. This is largely due to data constraints in nondemocratic contexts, such as limited data on political participation and the scarcity of panel opinion surveys, which are usually costly and tightly controlled by the state. This study proposes a method that relies solely on retweeting ties to produce ideological estimates and to track its changes over time, even in authoritarian settings. Taking Chinese online opinion leaders as an example, this study employs multiple correspondence analysis to estimate the ideological spectrum of these leaders. Results show that, over the past decade, these opinion leaders have gradually shifted toward the conservative/nationalist right with evidence of ideological polarization. The study validates the results against alternative ideological estimates, demonstrating the robustness of the retweet-based approach for tracking ideological changes.