Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-04T23:40:55.188Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Coalitional Behavior among the Chinese Military Elite: A Nonrecursive, Simultaneous Equations, and Multiplicative Causal Model*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

William Pang-yu Ting
William Pang-yu Ting*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

At least three competing proto-theories of Chinese military coalitional behavior (those of William Whitson, Harvey Nelsen, and William Parrish) have been proposed. This study attempts to: (1) reformulate these proto-theories into testable mathematical models, (2) test these reformulated models empirically, and (3) suggest an alternative theory of Chinese military coalitional behavior. I use causal modeling techniques to reformulate these proto-theories into mathematical ones and gather data on 423 members of the Chinese military elite to test the zero-predictions and structural equations of each model. The findings indicate that all three proto-theories may be misspecified theoretically. I then propose an alternative theory, which integrates features from all three proto-theories. This theory argues that members of the Chinese military elite form coalitions according to a set of affective ties and shared professional interests. This set of relationships is stated in mathematical terms, and the mathematical predictions deduced from it fit empirical data.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 73 , Issue 2 , June 1979 , pp. 478 - 493
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1979

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.)

Footnotes

*

Hubert Blalock and James Townsend provided constructive comments, insights, and friendship during the writing of this article, for which I am very grateful. They were instrumental in nurturing my interests in methodology and Chinese politics, respectively. My colleagues Robert Axelrod, Robert Dernberger, Lute Erbring, Samuel Eldersveld, Michel Oksenberg, Roy Pierce, J. David Singer, Raymond Tanter, William Zimmerman, and especially Allen Whiting provided very helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. My thanks also go to my wife Linda Ting for her assistance in computer programming and translation. An earlier version of this article was presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, New York, 1978.

References

Blalock, Hubert M. (1964). Causal Inferences in Nonexperimental Research. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Blalock, Hubert M. (1967). “Causal Inferences, Closed Populations, and Measurements of Associations.” American Political Science Review 61:130–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blalock, Hubert M. (1969). Theory Construction: From Verbal to Mathematical Formulations. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Blalock, Hubert M. (1971). “Causal Models Involving Unmeasured Variables in Stimulus-Response Situations.” In Blalock, Hubert (ed.), Causal Models in the Social Sciences. Chicago: Aldine, pp. 335–47.Google Scholar
Blalock, Hubert M. (1975). “Nonrecursive Models and Reciprocal Causation.” In Nanboodiri, Krishnan N., Carter, Lewis F., and Blalock, Hubert M., Applied Multivariate Analysis and Experimental Designs. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Costner, Herbert L. and Leik, Robert K. (1964). “Deductions From Axiomatic Theory.” American Sociological Review 29:819–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Costner, Herbert L. (1969). “Theory, Deduction, and Rules of Correspondence.” American Journal of Sociology 75: 245–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duncan, Otis D. (1966). “Path Analysis: Sociological Examples.” American Journal of Sociology 71:1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edelman, Murry (1977). Political Language: Words that Succeed and Policies that Fail. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Heise, David R. (1969). “Separating Reliability and Stability in Test-Retest Correlation.” American Sociological Review 34:93–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen-hsia, Huang (1968). Mao's Generals. Hong Kong: Research Institute of Contemporary History.Google Scholar
Johnston, J. (1972). Econometric Methods, 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Kau, Michael Y. M., ed. (1975). The Lin Piao Affair. White Plains, N.Y.: International Arts and Sciences Press.Google Scholar
Nelsen, Harvey (1972). “Military Forces in Chinese Military Politics.” China Quarterly 51:444–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parrish, William (1973). “Factions in Chinese Military Politics.” China Quarterly 56:667–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rao, Potluri and Miller, Roger (1971). Applied Econometrics. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth.Google Scholar
Skilling, H. Gordon and Griffith, Franklin, eds. (1971). Interest Groups in Soviet Politics. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Sung, George C. (1975). A Biographical Approach to Chinese Political Analysis. Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand Report, R–1665.Google Scholar
Swaan, Abraham de (1973). Coalition Theories and Cabinet Formation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Theil, Henry (1969). Principles of Econometrics. New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Ting, William (1975). “A Longitudinal Study of Chinese Military Factionalism.” Asian Survey 15:896–910.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ting, William (1976). A Causal Model of Chinese Military Coalitional Behavior. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington.Google Scholar
Townsend, James (1974). Politics in China. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Weng, Byron S. (1972). Peking's United Nations Policy: Continuity and Change. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Whitson, William (1968). “The Concept of Military Generation: The Chinese Communist Case.” Asian Survey 8:921–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitson, William (1969). “Field Army in Chinese Politics.” China Quarterly 37:1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitson, William (1973). The Chinese High Command. New York: Praeger.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiley, David and Wiley, James (1970). “The Estimation of Measurement Error in Panel Data.” American Sociological Review 35:112–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wonnacott, Ronald and Wonnacott, Thomas (1970). Econometrics. New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.