A large-scale field experiment on participatory decision-making in China

Can local democratic decision-making in authoritarian environments increase or pacify civic engagement and government accountability? Here we conducted an intervention reaching over 20 million people in China. Communities were randomly assigned such that citizens in treatment communities were invited to deliberate and make collective decisions on how local community budgets were allocated through both in-person and online communication channels (participatory budgeting). We find that participatory decision-making in community budgeting increased a wide range of civic-engagement behaviours outside of the budgeting domain 6 months after the start of the intervention. Residents in treatment communities reported more need for improvement from the central government, providing a potential foundation for seeking accountability from the authoritarian regime. These changes were accompanied by a more positive societal outlook and increased satisfaction in the country’s policies.