Factional Model-making in China: Party Elites’ Open Political Contention in the Policy Process

Olivia Cheung

doi:10.1017/s030574102200008x

Abstract

AbstractThis article introduces the analytical framework of “factional model-making” to describe and explain the open political contention of Chinese Communist Party elites in the policy process. Party elites undertake factional model-making to express policy disagreements and to signal their power to the regime: by flouting the Party line publicly without punishment, they show that they can influence the Party line and therefore pressurize the regime into acknowledging their position in the opaque power structure. This article chronicles the history of factional model-making from the 1960s to 2012 and examines in detail the making of Henan's Nanjie Village into a re-collectivization model by the Party's left. The process began in the 1990s and ended soon after Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, which prompted Nanjie's patrons to recast the village as a Party model trumpeting Xi's line. The suppression of factional model-making under Xi is discussed in the conclusion.

Highlights

This article introduces the analytical framework of “factional model-making” to describe and explain the open political contention of Chinese Communist Party elites in the policy process
This article advances the research of Chinese elite politics by introducing a generalizable analytical framework – “factional model-making” – to describe and explain the open political contention of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) elites – Party members recognized as prominent individuals by Chinese citizens – in the policy process
This framework contributes to the factionalism paradigm by illuminating the motivations, process and scope for open political contention surrounding the Party line

Summary

Introduction

This article introduces the analytical framework of “factional model-making” to describe and explain the open political contention of Chinese Communist Party elites in the policy process. This article advances the research of Chinese elite politics by introducing a generalizable analytical framework – “factional model-making” – to describe and explain the open political contention of CCP elites – Party members recognized as prominent individuals by Chinese citizens – in the policy process. This framework contributes to the factionalism paradigm by illuminating the motivations, process and scope for open political contention surrounding the Party line. Rather than taking the data from the gazetteer or NJCB at face value, I provide a contextualized interpretation of it based on my research of Chinese elite politics for the same time period in order to ascertain, as rigorously as possible, the Party left’s motivations for turning Nanjie into a factional model

Objectives

Conclusion