Pierre-François Landry, Decentralized Authoritarianism in China: The Communist Party’s Control of Local Elites in the Post-Mao Era

Abstract

China, or Zhongguo (literally “central state”), is seen by many as naturally or traditionally centralized under authoritarian rule. Yet China recently has enjoyed a brisk boom of prosperity that local entrepreneurs have brought by eroding a formerly centralized, now competitive market. How has the Communist Party maintained political control, as the economy has burgeoned and diversified? Pierre Landry answers this question by analyzing the efficiency of appointment and promotion systems. Presuming that the main motive of any official is to retain his/her current position (or, better, to move up the government ladder), an efficient system allocates appointment powers to a level that can effectively monitor and sanction cadres. Deductive theory suggests that if administrative appointing agents are located too far above a post to be filled, they will lack enough information about potential candidates. But if the appointing officials are too close in level to the vacant post, a talented appointee could later challenge their own authority. Post-Mao China offered a natural experiment to put empirical flesh on the bones of this theory: In the early 1980s, the Party’s Central Organization Department mandated a “two levels down” (xia liangji) rule: Any appointment to an important post was approved by a Party group not at the next-higher level, but two levels up. This procedure did not work well. So since 1984, the norm has been changed: the Party makes appointments just one level down. This applies to all leadership posts—in the state bureaucracy, businesses, congregations, universities, the media, and the Party itself. Specifically, the Party’s Organization Department in Beijing appoints provincelevel leaders (governors, Party secretaries, provincial Party standing committees, chairs of provincial people’s consultative conferences, chief justices and procurators, J OF CHIN POLIT SCI (2010) 15:337–338 DOI 10.1007/s11366-010-9105-3