Factions and the Politics of Guanxi: Paradoxes in Chinese Administrative and Political Behaviour

Abstract

Lowell Dittmer has provided a thoughtful and constructive review of various efforts to understand the workings of personal relationships in Chinese politics, and proposes an elegant analytical framework for future research. It is an important study above all because he seeks to bring order and analytical clarity to one of the most fundamental aspects of Chinese political behaviour. In the process he displays an impressive command of the details of elite relations during both the Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping eras. Yet by pushing nearly to the limits the potential for theoretical neatness, he also, I believe, reveals the limitations of generalized analysis of the subject and why there is need for greater contextual sensitivity of a more particularistic nature. The rules of personal relationships in Chinese politics, and especially the workings of guanxi, do not follow precise or constant formulations but are rather nuanced and subtle, for they accord to the particular situation. Dittmer does, nevertheless, provide a clearer overview of some fundamental features of Chinese public life which have been under? appreciated or misunderstood. Thus, while there may be some problems with his formulations, there are also pay-offs from the effort which may be more significant than the issues he addresses. Before discussing the conceptual problems I find in his formulations, let me first state that I greatly appreciate his acknowledgment of the merits of my theory that factional relations among cadres in the Mao era were very much driven by an anxious search for security in a danger-filled political environment. We now have extensive new documentation from the flood of