The integration of entertainment and politics has become an increasingly important feature of governance worldwide. Yet we know little about how states institutionally recruit celebrities to serve political purposes. This study provides the first empirical analysis of the political cooptation of entertainment celebrities in China, drawing on an original dataset of 2,898 individuals active from 1993 to 2023. We identify a sequential process of political cooptation through which the state initially offers access to regime-curated performances, which function both as material rewards and as ideological screening devices, and then appoints some of the celebrities to formal political bodies. The determinants of selection vary by institutional affiliation and leadership era. These findings extend theories of elite cooptation by showing how states convert media visibility into political capital and embed political control within popular culture as a strategy of regime resilience.
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