Who’s the Hero of Poverty Alleviation? Policy Narratives and Village Cadres’ Risk Preferences in Authoritarian China

(Note: The paper is devoted to Panel: Policy Processes Beyond Democracies, chaired by Annemieke van den Dool & Caroline Schlaufer) This study leverages the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) to investigate how policy narratives shape the risk preferences of village cadres in rural China, providing insights into policy processes within an authoritarian political system. By examining the micro-level behavioral impacts of competing poverty alleviation narratives—top-down versus bottom-up—this research highlights how narratives deployed by centralized regimes influence the psychological orientations of policy implementers and, by extension, policy outcomes. A survey experiment was conducted with 210 village cadres and representatives from 98 counties across 23 provinces. Participants were randomly assigned to view one of two one-minute video narratives styled as news reports. The top-down narrative framed the government as the hero of poverty alleviation, reflecting official rhetoric in China’s governance discourse. In contrast, the bottom-up narrative emphasized individual agency as the key to poverty alleviation success. Aside from narrative framing, the videos were identical in content and style. Participants' risk preferences were subsequently assessed using an investment-choice question adapted from the China General Social Survey. The findings reveal significant differences in risk preferences shaped by narrative framing. Exposure to the top-down narrative heightened risk aversion, leading participants to favor low-risk, low-return options, whereas the bottom-up narrative fostered greater risk-taking. These results suggest that authoritarian regimes' use of centralized, state-centric narratives may inhibit entrepreneurial behavior and grassroots innovation, while alternative narratives can foster autonomy and motivation. This study contributes to the literature on policy processes in authoritarian contexts by exploring how centralized political systems employ narratives as tools to influence implementers' behavior. By focusing on village cadres, who occupy a dual role as both state agents and community leaders, the research provides a nuanced understanding of governance mechanisms under authoritarianism. It further demonstrates the utility of the NPF for examining policy processes in non-democratic systems, offering insights into the cultural and institutional specificity of narrative effects. These findings also contribute to comparative discussions on how policy narratives function differently in democratic versus authoritarian settings.