Emotional Reasoning: The Unintended Consequence of Supervision Reform

• In Event: Judicial Politics of China

Abstract

The supervision reform since 2016 has fundamentally reshaped the anti-corruption campaign in China. Despite some excellent qualitative research, to what extent the reform impacted the handling of anti-corruption cases remains largely unexplored. Based on 23,454 judgments (involving 31,183 defendants) decided by Chinese courts from 2016 to 2019, we employ a PSM-DID analysis and a text reuse approach to offer the first empirical analysis of the impact of the reform on court decisions.

Our analysis shows that, by and large, the reform produced harsher punishment and more expedient trials, especially during the roll-out period. More intriguingly, when the reform was rolled out nationwide, Chinese judges tended to write their decisions with a greater level of emotions. Such tendency is more pronounced in cases decided more expediently or more severely. The unexpected emotional legal reasoning indicates the over-compliance of a judicial cohort under drastic political change and hints at the complex implications of the reform for the rule of law in China.

Authors

• Xiaohong Yu

• Zhaoyang Sun, Tsinghua University