New Books in Political Science Ning Leng, "Politicizing Business: How Firms Are Made to Serve the Party-State in China" (Cambridge, 2025)
Feb 4, 2026
Ning Leng, Assistant Professor at Georgetown specializing in Chinese political economy, explores how officials turn private firms into political instruments. She discusses visible infrastructure choices, why companies accept loss-making deals, the role of firms in controlling protests, and how promotion incentives reshape public services. The conversation also previews her work on Chinese firms in Latin America.
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Businesses Gamble On Side Deals
- Ning Leng recounts Chengdu officials asking a firm to build the world's largest shopping center in exchange for cheap land deals.
- The firm accepted despite expected losses and later received the promised land, showing quid pro quo dynamics.
Visibility Projects Solve Promotion Uncertainty
- Visibility projects arise because ambitious officials face information asymmetry about promotion criteria.
- Officials favor big visible projects to signal competence and loyalty to higher-ups.
Audience Changes What Projects Look Like
- Visibility politics differ between democracies and authoritarian states by audience.
- In autocracies officials compete to impress upper-level cadres, producing larger, less locally useful projects.
