Populism with Chinese Characteristics? Analyzing the Discursive Framing of CCP Leaders Throughout the Reform Era

While the global rise of populism has attracted extensive scholarly attention, populist dynamics in China remain relatively underexplored, limiting our understanding of the sources and nature of popular legitimacy in the Chinese context. This study employs a discursive-framing approach to analyze the populist discourse of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders during the reform era. Drawing on a dictionary-based text analysis of the selected works of four CCP leaders, this study constructs a populist lexicon encompassing themes of people-centrism and anti-elitism, tracing both the overall trajectory of populist discourse and the distinctive emphases of individual leaders. The findings support the argument that while this rhetoric has long been embedded in the CCP’s political tradition, its expression has varied across reform-era leaders and reflected their strategic adaptations in legitimacy building, power consolidation, and policy priorities. This study contributes to a fuller understanding of the Party’s populist attributes and broader discussions of China’s resilient authoritarianism, comparative authoritarianism, and populism in its varied forms.