Patronage and Power: Local State Networks and Party-State Resilience in Rural China by Ben Hillman

Abstract

Reviewed by: Patronage and Power: Local State Networks and Party-State Resilience in Rural China by Ben Hillman Kristen E. Looney (bio) Ben Hillman. Patronage and Power: Local State Networks and Party-State Resilience in Rural China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014. viii, 216 pp. Hardback $50.00, isbn 978-0-8047-8936-3. Patronage and Power: Local State Networks and Party-State Resilience in Rural China, as the title suggests, argues that patronage networks have contributed to the durability of the Chinese government. There has been a proliferation of studies over the past decade concerned with the issue of authoritarian resilience, but few if [End Page 47] any of these have attempted what Ben Hillman has done in this important new book, which is to write an ethnography of the inner workings of the local state. The book pushes readers to reconsider the dominant typologies and paradigms for understanding rural China. In Hillman’s view, the tendency to categorize local governments as developmental or predatory not only fails to capture the reality of many places but also obscures similarities among them. Although his study is limited to just one county in the southwest, he persuasively suggests that patronage politics is a useful theoretical frame for thinking about China more broadly. While other works have explored the role of personalistic networks at the national level, for example, by identifying links among central officials or between central and provincial leaders, this book makes a unique contribution by analyzing such networks at the local level. “Patronage,” Hillman insists, is a better term than “faction” because it implies less conflict and encapsulates the primary attribute of these networks. Furthermore, the patronage framework, by emphasizing interests that “crisscross state and society boundaries” (p. 165), problematizes the state–society conflict trope that is so commonly found in studies of rural China. The first four chapters examine the local state from the bottom up, starting with the village, moving to the township, then the county, and finally the prefecture. This kind of multilevel analysis allows Hillman to disaggregate the local state and to tease out power relations. The image that emerges is one of intense political competition for resources involving kinship-based patronage networks. This competition for spoils is not, however, altogether bad. Hillman asserts that patronage networks constitute an informal institution that helps “grease the wheels of bureaucracy” by overcoming red tape, fragmented authority structures, and unclear formal rules (p. 166). As for the origins of these networks, chapter 1 explains that Maoism failed to destroy kinship ties and may have actually reinforced them by organizing production teams around residency and by leaving the victims of political campaigns with little choice but to rely on kinship networks for survival. With the advent of market reforms and the decline of official ideology, these ties became even more important, so much so that village leaders began sponsoring religious and cultural activities in the hopes of gaining the support of their kinsmen. Though not exactly articulated this way, there appear to be two central questions driving the analysis: What do patronage networks want? And are they more powerful than the Party? With regard to the first question, all groups want control of government resources, such as credit, employment opportunities, and funds for special projects. They also want access to income-generating natural resources such as forests, pastures, and water (p. 21). Chapters 5 and 6 directly address the issues surrounding competition for government and natural resources, respectively. Yet even in the opening chapters, we see how competition affects politics at every level. Clans vie for dominance within a single village, and they mobilize their [End Page 48] networks across villages to leverage control over the township. Likewise, township officials draw on patronage networks to induce policy compliance in the villages, which has become increasingly difficult in light of village elections and recent reforms undercutting townships’ fiscal power. The county where Hillman conducted research is unusual in that township elections take place every three years. This “administrative anomaly” (p. 9) can be traced back to the fact that districts—units set up just below the county level in the 1950s—were reclassified in the reform era as townships...