The Role of the Organization Department in Political Selection

Abstract

In Zouping County, as elsewhere in China, the organization department is arguably the most powerful operational department of the communist party committee. This chapter focuses on the crux of that power, which is also the crux of party power: political selection. The county organization department collects information about party and government officials in the course of routine evaluations and non-routine vetting and uses that information to recommend personnel decisions to the party committee. This is a huge responsibility. Reform-era changes have not only increased the challenges for the department but also increased the likelihood that its failure to do the job well will be more easily detected. With few new staff and no major new institutional design, the organization department does many new (and newly required) things, so as to accomplish the core task of political selection that has always been its main charge.