Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T08:55:28.012Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

10 - Varieties of Patronage in a Single-Party State

Ministers in China

from Part III - Autocracies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2023

B. Guy Peters
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
Colin Knox
Affiliation:
Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan
Byeong Seob Kim
Affiliation:
Seoul National University
Get access

Summary

Extant literature on Chinese elite politics tend to argue that Chinese officials work under a political system very different from a western-Weberian bureaucracy. Factional patron-client relationship is considered a dominant factor affecting political appointment of high-level officials. However, prior findings have been mainly based on governors of provincial or prefectural jurisdictions or central committee members. State Council ministers and vice-ministers are largely missing in the previous analysis. Our research examines State Council ministers and vice-ministers under the administration of President Xi Jinping. This high-level bureaucrat group arguably is most comparable to the political appointees in Weberian bureaucracies. We systematically analyze their types of patronage along the policy-politics divide and loyalty basis. We also bring in the dimension of expertise to further identify the extent of professionalization of Chinese ministers. We find a variety of patronage existing among Chinese ministers. Political loyalty is only one kind of the patronage affecting personnel configurations of the State Council.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Andreas, J. (2009). Rise of the Red Engineers: The Cultural Revolution and the Origins of China’s New Class. Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Armstrong, J. D. (1977). Revolutionary Diplomacy: Chinese Foreign Policy and the United Front Doctrine. University of California Press.Google Scholar
Burns, J. P. (1987). China’s Nomenklatura System. Problems of Communism, 36(5), 3651.Google Scholar
Burns, J. P. (2000). Public Sector Reform and the State: The Case of China. Public Administration Quarterly, 24(4), 419436.Google Scholar
Chen, Y., Li, H., & Zhou, L. (2005). Relative Performance Evaluation and the Turnover of Provincial Leaders in China. Economic Letters, 88(3), 421425.Google Scholar
Edin, M. (2003). State Capacity and Local Agent Control in China: CCP Cadre Management from a Township Perspective. The China Quarterly, 173, 3552.Google Scholar
Gries, P. H., & Rosen, S. (2004). State and Society in 21st Century China: Crisis, Contention, and Legitimation. Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Guo, S. (2012). Chinese Politics and Government: Power, Ideology and Organization. Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
He, B., & Warren, M. E. (2011). Authoritarian Deliberation: The Deliberative Turn in Chinese Political Development. Perspectives on Politics, 9(2), 269289.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heikkila, T., Weible, C. M., & Gerlak, A. K. (2020). When Does Science Persuade (or Not Persuade) in High-Conflict Policy Contexts? Public Administration, 98(3), 535550.Google Scholar
Jiang, J. (2018). Making Bureaucracy Work: Patronage Networks, Performance Incentives, and Economic Development in China. American Journal of Political Science, 62(4), 982999.Google Scholar
Landry, P. F., , X., & Duan, H. (2018). Does Performance Matter? Evaluating Political Selection along the Chinese Administrative Ladder. Comparative Political Studies, 51(8), 10741105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, B., & Walder, A. G. (2001). Career Advancement as Party Patronage: Sponsored Mobility into the Chinese Administrative Elite, 1949–1996. American Journal of Sociology, 106(5), 13711408.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, D. D. (1998). Changing Incentives of the Chinese Bureaucracy. The American Economic Review, 88(2), 393397.Google Scholar
Li, H., & Zhou, L. (2005). Political Turnover and Economic Performance: The Incentive Role of Personnel Control in China. Journal of Public Economics, 89(9–10), 17431762.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lieberthal, K. (2004). Governing China: From Revolution to Reform (2nd ed.). W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Lieberthal, K., & Oksenberg, M. (1990). Policy Making in China: Leaders, Structures, and Processes. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
MacFarquhar, R., & Schoenhals, M. (2006). Mao’s Last Revolution. Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maskin, E., Qian, Y., & Xu, C. (2000). Incentives, Information, and Organizational Form. The Review of Economic Studies, 67(2), 359378.Google Scholar
Nathan, A. J. (1973). A Factionalism Model for CCP Politics. The China Quarterly, 53, 3466.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Qiao, L. (2012). Performance, preference, promotion: political mobility of Chinese regional leaders [Doctoral Dissertation, Louisiana State University]. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/1563/Google Scholar
Saich, T. (2015). Governance and Politics of China (4th ed.). Palgrave.Google Scholar
Saich, T. (2021). From Rebel to Ruler: One Hundred Years of the Chinese Communist Party. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Shih, V. C. (2016). Efforts at Exterminating Factionalism under Xi Jinping: Will Xi Jinping Dominate Chinese Politics after the 19th Party Congress? In Sebastian, H. & Matthias, S. (Eds.), China’s Core Executive: Leadership Styles, Structures and Processes under Xi Jinping (pp. 1822). Mercator Institute for China Studies.Google Scholar
Shih, V. C., Shan, W., & Liu, M. (2010). Gauging the Elite Political Equilibrium in the CCP: A Quantitative Approach Using Biographical Data. The China Quarterly, 201, 79103.Google Scholar
Shih, V. C., Adolph, C., & Liu, M. (2012). Getting Ahead in the Communist Party: Explaining the Advancement of Central Committee Members. American Political Science Review, 106(1), 166187.Google Scholar
Shirk, S. L. (2018). China in Xi’s “New Era”: The Return to Personalistic Rule. Journal of Democracy, 29(2), 2236.Google Scholar
Sun, Y. (2018). Debating Ethnic Governance in China. Journal of Contemporary China, 28(115), 118132.Google Scholar
Tao, R., Su, F., Lu, X., & Zhu, Y. (2010). Jingji zengzhang nenggou dailai pushengma? (Can Economic Performance Bring about Promotion?). Guanli shijie (Management World), (12), 1327.Google Scholar
Tsou, T. (1995). Chinese Politics at the Top: Factionalism or Informal Politics? Balance-of-Power Politics or a Game to Win All? The China Journal, (34), 95156.Google Scholar
Wang, R., & Groot, G. (2018). Who Represents? Xi Jinping’s Grand United Front Work, Legitimation, Participation and Consultative Democracy. Journal of Contemporary China, 27(112), 569583.Google Scholar
Whiting, S. H. (2004). The Cadre Evaluation System at the Grassroots: The Paradox of Party Rule. In Naughton, B. & Yang, D. (Eds.), Holding China Together (pp. 101119). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Zang, X. (2015). Ethnicity in China: A Critical Introduction. Polity Press.Google Scholar
Zhu, J. (2008). Why Are Offices for Sale in China? A Case Study of the Office-Selling Chain in Heilongjiang Province. Asian Survey, 48(4), 558579.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×