Factions and spoils: Examining political behavior within the local state in China

China Journal

Volumn , Issue 64, 2010, Pages 1-18

  Hillman, Ben ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

LOCAL GOVERNMENT; POLITICAL SYSTEM; STATE-LOCAL RELATIONS;

CHINA;

EID: 77954768657     PISSN: 13249347     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/tcj.64.20749244     Document Type: Review

References (50)

1. Sub-national governments' share of public expenditure in China was 78.7 per cent in 2009. Source: China Statistical Yearbook 2009, http://www.stats.gov. cn/tjsj/ndsj/2009/indexeh.htm, accessed 18 May 2010.
2. Two useful overviews of the local state literature are: Tony Saich, "The Blind Man and the Elephant: Analysing the Local State in China", in Luigi Tomba (ed.), East Asian Capitalism: Conflicts Growth And Crisis (Milan: Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, 2002), pp. 75-99;
3. and Richard Baum and Alexei Shevchenko, "The State of the State", in Merle Goldman and Roderick McFarquar (eds), The Paradox of China's Post-Mao Reforms (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 330-60.
4. On local state variation, see especially Elizabeth Remick, Building Local States: China During the Republican and Post-Mao Eras (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2004).
5. Thomas P. Bernstein and Xiaobo Lü, Taxation Without Representation in Contemporary Rural China (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
6. See also Linda Chelan Li, "Working for the Peasants? Strategic Interactions and Unintended Consequences in Chinese Rural Tax Reform", The China Journal, No. 57 (January 2007), pp. 89-106.
7. Marc Blecher and Vivienne Shue, Tethered Deer: Government and Economy in a Chinese County (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996).
8. Jane Duckett, The Entrepreneurial State in China: Real Estate and Commerce Departments in Reform Era Tianjin (London: Routledge, 1996).
9. Minxin Pei, China's Trapped Transition: The Limits of Developmental Autocracy (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2006).
10. Tao-chiu Lam, The Local State under Reform: A Study of a County in Hainan Province, PhD Dissertation, Australian National University, 2000.
11. For an overview of the large number of typologies that scholars have produced to characterize China's local states, see Richard Baum and Alexei Shevchenko, "The State of the State".
12. On the role of off-budget revenue in Chinas local public finance, see Fan Gang, "Marketoriented Economic Reform and the Growth of Off-Budget Local Public Finance", in Donald J. S. Brean (ed.), Taxation in Modern China (London: Routledge, 1998) ;
13. and Christine Wong and Richard Bird, "China's Fiscal System: A Work in Progress", in Loren Brandt and Thomas Rawski (eds), China's Great Transformation: Origins, Mechanisms, and Consequences of the Post-Reform Economic Boom (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
14. The following works are key studies on factionalism in contemporary Chinese politics. Notably, all are concerned with élite politics. For an overview, see the collection of articles in The China Journal, No. 34 (1995)
15. later published as Jon Unger (ed.), The Nature of Chinese Politics, from Mao through Jiang (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 2002) ;
16. and Lowell Dittmer and Yu-Shan Wu, "The Modernization of Factionalism in Chinese Politics", World Politics, Vol. 47 (7 July 1995), pp. 467-94.
17. For an historical treatment of factions in élite Chinese politics, see also Jing Huang, Factionalism in Chinese Communist Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
18. For recent studies of China's élite factions, see Cheng Li, "One Party, Two Factions: Chinese Bipartisanship in the Making?", paper presented at the conference on "Chinese Leadership, Politics, and Policy", Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2 November 2005;
19. and Wang Zhengxu, "Hu Jintao's Power Consolidation: Groups, Institutions and Power Balance in China's Élite Politics", Issues and Studies, Vol. 42, No. 4 (December 2006), pp 97-136.
20. See Xiaobo Lü, "Booty Socialism, Bureau-Preneurs, and the State in Transition: Organizational Corruption in China", Comparative Politics, Vol. 32, No. 3 (April 2000), pp. 273-94.
21. Kenneth Lieberthal and Michel Oksenberg, Policy Making in China: Leaders, Structures, and Processes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988).
22. See Tang Tsou, "Prolegomenon to the Study of Informal Groups in CCP Politics", The China Quarterly, No. 65 (March 1976), pp. 98-114. The debate resurfaced in a 1995 issue of The China Journal in which Nathan and Tsou reasserted their positions. Nathan restated his case for a structural approach in the language of the new institutionalism.
23. See Tang Tsou, "Chinese Politics at the Top: Factionalism or Informal Politics? Balance-of-Power Politics or a Game to Win All?", The China Journal, No. 34 (July 1995), pp. 95-156;
24. and Andrew Nathan and Kellee S. Tsai, "Factionalism in Chinese Politics from a New Institutionalist Perspective", in Jonathan Unger (ed.), The Nature of Chinese Politics, pp. 161-75.
25. Frank P. Belloni and Dennis C. Beller, Faction Politics: Political Parties and Factionalism in Comparative Perspective (Santa Barbara: ABC Clio Press, 1978), p. 419.
26. rd edition (London: Routledge, 2004), p. 289.
27. Andrew Nathan, "A Factionalism Model for CCP Politics", The China Quarterly, No. 53 (1973), pp. 33-66.
28. In many parts of China the district level is a municipality.
29. During the debate on factionalism in China's politics, Andrew Nathan argued that Chinese élite politics was characterized by primus inter pares factional struggle. Tang Tsou argued that inter-group rivalry must result in the domination by one and the elimination of the other for political equilibrium to be restored. While Tang's might have been more accurate in an earlier era, I argue that the complexities of governing China today probably preclude the domination of one intra-state group. See Note 12.
30. See Sally Sargeson and Song Yu, "Land Expropriation and Women's Citizenship Entitlements", The China Journal, No. 64 (July 2010), pp. 19-45
31. and You-Tien Hsing, The Great Urban Transformation: Politics of Land and Property in China (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).
32. The same bureau in another county will not necessarily have all the same powers or responsibilities.
33. Graeme Smith has written of the influence of the mishuzhang in a county in Anhui. See Graeme Smith, "Political Machinations in a Rural County", The China Journal, No. 62 (July 2009), pp. 29-59. While Smith does not use the "factional" model in his analysis of local politics, he identifies similar sources of power and influence within the local Partystate as well as similar patterns of political behavior.
34. While research findings suggest that factional linkages extend through the province to the central government, it is beyond the scope of this study to examine factional politics at the provincial level and beyond. The nature of factional politics at the provincial level and how such factions link political struggles at the grass roots with political struggles at the center is an important subject for future research.
35. Leading proponents of this view are Maria Edin, "State Capacity and Local Agent Control in China: CCP Cadre Management from a Township Perspective", The China Quarterly, No. 173 (March (2003), pp. 35-52;
36. and Pierre Landry, Decentralized Authoritarianism in China: The Communist Party's Control of Local Élites in the Post-Mao Era (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
37. Dali Yang has also argued that recent reforms have strengthened performance and reduced corruption in the public service. See Dali Yang, Remaking the Leviathan: Market Transition and the Politics of Governance in China (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2004).
38. Minxin Pei offers a different view. Consistent with my arguments, Pei argues that that administrative decentralization has compounded principal-agent problems and given rise to local political monopolies. See Minxin Pei, China's Trapped Transition.
39. Pierre Landry, Decentralized Authoritarianism in China, p. 16.
40. Ibid., p 17.
41. See, for example, Graeme Smith, "Political Machinations";
42. Dali Yang, Remaking the Chinese Leviathan;
43. Xiaobo Lü, Cadres and Corruption: The Organizational Involution of the Chinese Communist Party (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999) ;
44. For further detail on the formalities of this process, see Yang Zhong, Local Government and Politics in China: Challenges from Below (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 2003).
45. For similar arguments, see Maria Edin, "State Capacity and Local Agent Control in China".
46. For another perspective on this subject, see Susan Whiting, "The Cadre Evaluation System at the Grassroots: The Paradox of Party Rule", in Barry Naughton and Dali Yang (eds), Holding China Together (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 101-19.
47. Yan Sun similarly argues that the cadre management system remains vulnerable to local capture despite (and in some cases because of) recent administrative reforms. See Yan Sun, "Cadre Recruitment and Corruption: What Goes Wrong?", Crime, Law and Social Change, Vol. 49, No. 1 (February 2008), pp. 61-79.
48. See, for example, Frank P. Belloni and Dennis C. Beller, Faction Politics.
49. Hongbin Cai and Daniel Treisman, "Did Governent Decentralization Cause China's Economic Miracle?", World Politics, No. 58 (July 2006), pp. 505-35.
50. The functions of these two agencies are largely the same, except that the Party Discipline Committee investigates Party members and the Investigations Bureau investigates non-Party members on the state payroll. Most, but not all, senior local government officials are Party members.