17:45 - 20:00
Friday-Panel
Chair/s:
Christoph Steinert
Discussant/s:
Felix Bethke, Barbara Piotrowska
Meeting Room N

Daniel Bischof, Vicente Valentim
Does Banning Extremism Work? Evidence from Employment Bans in Germany

Anna Pauls
When repression signals bad policy

Christoph Steinert
The duration of political imprisonment: Evidence from China

Jamie Gruffydd-jones
Violations across borders: The impacts of American racial discrimination on support for minority rights around the world

Ziyi Wu
Attacking With Their Own Words: The Use of Censored Sources in News by Party Media in China
The duration of political imprisonment: Evidence from China
Christoph Steinert
University of Mannheim

The Chinese regime is notorious for the large-scale detention of dissidents and ethnic minorities, however, little is known about the fates of Chinese political prisoners. This study investigates determinants of the duration of political imprisonment and the likelihood of surviving imprisonment in China. Since the length of prison sentences is a function of preceding actions, I categorize Chinese political prisoners according to the crimes they were accused of. Political prisoners are further distinguished on the basis of their religious and ethnic identities, their occupations, and legal processes. I argue that political prisoners that were accused of founding dissident groups and those from ethnic minorities experience the harshest punishment. Drawing on the Chinese Political Prisoners Database, I study the duration of political imprisonment with survival models accounting for cross-national variation between provinces (N=2,128). I investigate the likelihood of dying in prison with logistic regression models controlling for prisoners' ages. Preliminary findings suggest that ethnic Uyghurs are significantly longer imprisoned and more likely to die in prison. The results hold in subgroup analyses of political prisoners that were accused of the same crimes. The findings suggest that ethnic Uyghurs are not only imprisoned in larger numbers but also systematically discriminated within prison walls.