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13050 results in East Asian government, politics and policy

Page 151 of 653

  • 1 - Introduction: Party-Based Authoritarianism in China

  • from PART I - AUTOCRATIC GRASSROOTS POLITICS
  • Daniel Koss, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
  • Book:
    Where the Party Rules
    Published online:
    21 April 2018
    Print publication:
    05 April 2018, pp 3-34
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  • Summary

    Political parties are pivotal institutions, in democratic and authoritarian contexts alike. Almost all seventy-one nondemocracies, in 2015 governing 44 percent of the world population, have parties. In most of these countries at least one party is tightly controlled by the ruling clique, such as United Russia, the United Malays National Organization, and Turkey's Justice and Development Party. In contrast to other autocratic arrangements, such as military dictatorship and personalistic rule, partybased authoritarianism has proven itself effective in governing modernizing societies and mitigating democratization pressures. But how do parties contribute to effective authoritarian rule? And what are the origins of effective regime parties? The first question calls for a study of contemporary autocratic governance. The second question takes us back to history. The literature provides answers to both questions, but incomplete ones. The case of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which is the focus of this book, promises to change the way we think about the functions and origins of effective authoritarian regime parties.

    This book demonstrates that an authoritarian regime party can provide the organizational infrastructure that allows a state to project authority throughout its realm. By implication, the book explains why authoritarian regimes are usually more effective in some parts of their territories than in others: The uneven presence of rank-and-file party members makes an important difference for policy implementation on the ground. The CCP's rank and file empowers the state at the local level, precisely because the overwhelming majority of party members is not in bureaucratic positions, but works outside the government. Chapter 2 develops a new theory of authoritarian regime parties, after which the following two chapters test the theory's observable implications for subnational variation in contemporary state-building outcomes, and describe causal mechanisms. To do so, Chapter 3 analyzes the particularly challenging enforcement of the one-child policy, and Chapter 4 turns to the universally relevant statebuilding task of collecting taxes.

    The next two chapters turn to the historical origins of local party strength, arguable found in the Second Sino-Japanese War (1939–1945). Chapter 5 shows that Japanese occupation shielded the Communists from persecution by the incumbent Nationalist government and allowed the party to recruit members behind enemy lines, shaping membership patterns at the time of the Communist takeover in 1949.

  • 5 - War Contingencies at the Origin of the CCP's Power Base

  • from PART III - THE PARTY'S ORIGINS
  • Daniel Koss, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
  • Book:
    Where the Party Rules
    Published online:
    21 April 2018
    Print publication:
    05 April 2018, pp 161-192

  • Summary

    If it wasn't for your Imperial Army invading most of China, the Chinese people could not have united to deal with you and the CCP would not have been able to seize power.

    Mao Zedong

    Having demonstrated in the previous two chapters that the party's penetration of local communities is extremely consequential, this chapter turns to history in order to explore why the party is so much more present in some localities than in others to begin with. Founded in 1921, the CCP was on the run for the first decade and a half of its existence. After the party's near-defeat in Southern China and the Long March, the survivors took refuge in a remote mountain area known as the Yan'an base area, with few prospects of future success. Yet the fate of the party was to change dramatically, because the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937 granted the CCP a second chance. The enemy not only shielded the party from persecution by the incumbent government, which under the circumstances had little choice but to agree to a united front. In addition, the foreign aggression facilitated recruitment among civilians most affected by the war. Behind Japanese enemy lines, Communists set up local party branches and even full-fledged governments. Many of these institutions would be kept intact until the foundation of the People's Republic. This chapter explains how the geographic patterns of Japanese occupation shaped the party's rank-and-file power base until the eve of the Communist takeover in 1949. That these early membership patterns persisted even after 1949 and are still reflected in the party's power base today is demonstrated by the following Chapter 6.

    As reflected in the epigraph, Mao Zedong recognized that the Japanese invasion provided the CCP with a golden opportunity for mobilizing the masses and for reviving the Communist movement.

  • 3 - The CCP as Co-enforcer of the One-Child Policy

  • from PART II - THE PARTY IN CONTEMPORARY CHINA
  • Daniel Koss, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
  • Book:
    Where the Party Rules
    Published online:
    21 April 2018
    Print publication:
    05 April 2018, pp 85-123

  • Summary

    China's recently abolished one-child policy was one of the most ambitious, successfully implemented government policies of the twentieth century. The stunning goal of Chinese family planning was to reduce fertility to about one birth per woman, down from five births per woman in the early 1970s. Along with the military draft, family planning stands out as an extremely intrusive manifestation of state power. In China, the one-child policy not only had to deal with strong preferences for multiple children, but also with deeply rooted expectations that every woman must give birth to a male inheritor of the family tradition, a goal that often puts tremendous pressure on couples to reproduce beyond the first, legal child. Exercising biopower over a diverse population of a billion people is a daunting enterprise. For political scientists, family planning is a fascinating phenomenon, where the party state has managed to extract compliance with a policy that – even if ultimately it may be for the common good – clashes with citizens’ individual preferences. Whether one approves of family planning or whether one objects to it, it has been a spectacular display of state power.

    The case of the one-child policy exemplifies, in one critical policy area, the role of the CCP's local membership for policy enforcement at the grassroots level. Given the high political priority of the one-child policy, it is to be expected that the party state deploys its most powerful tools to ensure smooth implementation – and as this book argues, the party's rank and file are an essential instrument in the state's toolbox. In sync with the following chapter on tax extraction, this chapter provides evidence that the Leninist apparatus empowers the Chinese state throughout its realm. Moreover, the one-child policy provides an opportunity to clarify – analytically and empirically – the separation of party and state. Far from being a formality without substantial implications, the party and the government remain distinct institutions with distinct functions. The boundary separating the two has evolved over time as the result of discrete choices, which have resulted in a relatively efficient design.

  • 6 - The Shifting Geography of the CCP's Power Base (1949–2016)

  • from PART III - THE PARTY'S ORIGINS
  • Daniel Koss, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
  • Book:
    Where the Party Rules
    Published online:
    21 April 2018
    Print publication:
    05 April 2018, pp 193-240

  • Summary

    After the foundation of the People's Republic in 1949, instead of contending themselves with geographic patterns of control inherited from the war, party leaders were keen on penetrating areas where up to that point Communists had little of a presence. In the 1950s and 1960s, policy planners were well aware that later acquired territories posed distinct governance challenges to the Communist regime. For instance, by 1949 land reform had already been completed in one third of the country's territory, but not in the two thirds classified as newly liberated areas – indicating not only different ownership structures, but the persistence of traditional systems of local authority. Along with a quick expansion of the CCP's membership, strategies to grasp firm control of grassroots society throughout the realm were, by and large, successful. However, this success does not imply that the CCP controls its territory uniformly, or that historically inherited patterns of control vanished without a trace.

    In the seven decades after the foundation of the People's Republic, the geographic power base of the CCP has shifted remarkably little, despite great political upheaval. Comparing party penetration, that is party members per citizens across provinces in 1956 and 2010, a correlation coefficient of 0. 78 indicates that membership patterns drifted, but did not change dramatically. Membership patterns in the early years of the People's Republic go a long way predicting membership patterns today: 61 percent of the variation in membership patterns in 2010 can be explained as a result of membership patterns in 1956. Is China's political geography “under the thumb of history”? Clearly, China's political geography, as reflected in party membership patterns, proved very persistent over time – the question is why. Are recruitment priorities targeting the same geographic areas? Or are membership patterns sticky, following historical precedence and adjusting only slowly to new priorities?

    The first section of this chapter argues that the party's recruitment procedures result in path-dependent outcomes. The strategic priorities, formulated by Organization Departments at all levels of the hierarchy in membership recruitment plans in the 1950s, aimed to cover the territory with a more uniform party member network.

  • 8 - The CCP and Regime Survival in Times of Crisis (1967–1969)

  • from PART IV - THE PARTY IN THE MAO ERA
  • Daniel Koss, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
  • Book:
    Where the Party Rules
    Published online:
    21 April 2018
    Print publication:
    05 April 2018, pp 262-308

  • Summary

    Under ordinary circumstances, local party members empower the regime by assisting in policy implementation, as Chapters 3 and 4 have demonstrated. But what if in a moment of crisis the party's ordinary chain of command breaks down, leaving local party cells with no instructions? Are local party organizations of any help in the hours of the regime's greatest need? To address these questions, this chapter focuses on the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), an era when Mao Zedong, for fear of revisionism inside the CCP, called on people to “attack the headquarters” by overturning local party leadership. The movement brought China to the brink of anarchy. As a moment of existential crisis, the Cultural Revolution reveals how the party functions in emergency mode and brings to light the forces of order that ultimately prevailed. Whereas the previous chapters explain how an authoritarian party empowers the regime on an every-day basis, this chapter gives clues as to what to expect from the party when the regime is in crisis. Based on a large variety of documentary evidence, the analysis reveals the central role of the party for regime survival and identifies multiple mechanisms at work. Without the continued presence of the party at the local level, the People's Republic would have been unlikely to survive the turmoil.

    To understand the durability of a party-based authoritarian regime, it is not enough to investigate its operations under favorable conditions. In the case of the Chinese party state, during the past three decades conditions have been very favorable indeed. Since 1983, in seventeen years out of thirty-two, China experienced double-digit economic growth rates. Furthermore, since 1997 state budgets have grown faster than the economy. The annual growth rate of fiscal revenues was 51 percent higher than the growth rate of the economy. The resilience of the Chinese party state has drawn much scholarly attention, but few political scientists study contemporary regime resilience with attention to the era when it was under greatest threat, namely at the height of the Cultural Revolution in 1967– 1968.

  • 2 - A Theory of Authoritarian Regime Parties

  • from PART I - AUTOCRATIC GRASSROOTS POLITICS
  • Daniel Koss, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
  • Book:
    Where the Party Rules
    Published online:
    21 April 2018
    Print publication:
    05 April 2018, pp 35-82

  • Summary

    Political parties are most efficacious instruments for autocrats to govern modernizing societies. As socioeconomic development puts increasing strains on nondemocratic systems and as episodes of economic downturn can quickly throw regimes into disarray, authoritarian leaders have a better chance to maintain order if they rely on a party apparatus, rather than on personalistic arrangements or military cliques. Maintaining order is not merely a question of sheer regime survival, but also of effective governance on an everyday basis, which reflects the strength of a regime.

    Recognizing that parties make such a big difference for authoritarian strength, the literature on authoritarian parties is now among the most vibrant fields of political science inquiry. This literature has pinpointed two important questions: How exactly do authoritarian parties contribute to political order? And what makes authoritarian parties strong to begin with? To both questions answers are emerging, but they do not sit well with the case of the Chinese Communist Party. Therefore, by introducing into the debate the case of China, this book contributes to improving the answers to both questions.

    But before delving deep into the case of the CCP, this chapter develops elements for a new theory of authoritarian regime parties, which could plausibly apply to many other undemocratic governments as well, including historical ones. The theory first addresses the question of how exactly parties help effective governance, focusing on the maintenance of political order in ordinary times and in times of crisis. It has implications for, but does not directly speak to, questions of regime durability. Existing answers revolve around three central ideas, which the following section spells out in detail. Each idea captures important aspects of contemporary regime parties, but the focus is too narrow and misses other important aspects of what authoritarian parties are, what they do, and how they make regimes strong.

  • • According to conventional views, authoritarian parties moderate elite conflict at the central commanding heights of power. In fact, regime parties operate not only at the centers of power, but also at the periphery. Often the distinct strength of parties is precisely their deep penetration of society and their nationwide projection of authority based on their local presence.

  • Fissures between Human Rights Advocates and NGO Practitioners in China's Civil Society: A Case Study of the Equal Education Campaign, 2009–2013

  • Mujun Zhou
  • Journal:
    The China Quarterly / Volume 234 / June 2018
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    02 April 2018, pp. 486-505
    Print publication:
    June 2018

  • This article uses a case study to analyse the fissures between human rights advocates and NGO practitioners. Since 2009, the Open Constitution Initiative, an organization run by human rights advocates, has been campaigning for migrant children's right to attend local schools. While fragmented resistance on the same issue has long existed in activities organized by migrant community NGOs, there has been almost no cooperation between the two parties during the campaign. Based on ethnographic research, I elaborate on how these two groups of activists differ in their strategies and goals, and how their choices are related to their understanding of political struggle and political transformation. I contend that this case provides a new lens through which to view the recent decline in some human rights activism in China, and illustrates the importance of investigating the internal structure of civil society.

Page 151 of 653