Mortara Research Seminar – A Conversation with Professor Daniel Mattingly

By Ruth Albright

On Monday, April 20th, the Mortara Center for International Studies had the pleasure of welcoming Professor Daniel Mattingly of Yale University as a distinguished guest for the Mortara Center’s recurring Research Seminar series. The Mortara Research Seminar brings leading scholars to Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service to present cutting-edge research and engage in discussion with faculty and graduate students. Professor Mattingly, an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Yale University, delivered a compelling talk on his co-authored research project, “How Ideology Shapes Elite Politics in China,” conducted with PhD student Jonathan Elkobi.

Professor Mattingly is a political scientist whose work focuses on authoritarian governance, elite behavior, and political control in contemporary China. He is the author of The Art of Political Control in China, a widely recognized book that examines how the Chinese Communist Party maintains authority through adaptive bureaucratic management and institutional strategy. The book received multiple major honors, including the Gaddis Smith International Book Prize and the Best Book Award from the APSA Democracy and Autocracy Section, and was named one of the Best Books of 2020 by Foreign Affairs.

His scholarship has also been widely recognized for its journal contributions. His article “How the Party Commands the Gun: The Foreign–Domestic Threat Dilemma in China,” published in the American Journal of Political Science, won both the 2023 Luebbert Best Article Award and the 2025 American Journal of Political Science Best Article Award. In addition, his more recent work has continued to attract international attention, including a 2024 Foreign Affairs piece titled “China’s Soft Sell of Autocracy Is Working,” which examines China’s global messaging strategy, and a co-authored American Journal of Political Science article analyzing how Chinese state media influences international perceptions of the “China model” across multiple countries.

In his presentation, Professor Mattingly drew on his broader research program to explore how ideology and elite networks shape governance in authoritarian systems. While conventional accounts often emphasize survival politics and patronage, he argued that ideology plays a more structured and consequential role than is typically assumed. Focusing on contemporary China under Xi Jinping, Professor Mattingly highlighted how ideological alignment within the Chinese Communist Party is linked to real policy differences, particularly in areas such as redistribution and economic development. Rather than serving as mere rhetoric, ideology helps structure decision-making and guide policy implementation across different levels of government. Officials embedded in networks aligned with Xi are more likely to adopt policies consistent with his priorities, while others exhibit different policy emphases.

A central theme of the talk was the importance of elite networks in transmitting ideological preferences. Through shared career paths and institutional experiences, officials both infer leadership priorities and signal their own alignment, helping reduce uncertainty within a large and complex bureaucratic system. Professor Mattingly concluded by emphasizing that authoritarian politics cannot be fully understood through a lens of coercion or survival alone. Instead, ideology, networks, and institutions interact in shaping how power is exercised and how policy is implemented.

Following the seminar, Professor Mattingly met with faculty and graduate students to discuss his research in greater depth and to reflect on broader questions in comparative politics. His visit offered the Georgetown community an opportunity to engage with one of the leading scholars working at the intersection of authoritarian governance and Chinese politics.