The cadre evaluation system at the grass roots: The paradox of party rule

Holding China Together: Diversity and National Integration in the Post-Deng Era

Volumn , Issue , 2004, Pages 101-119

  Whiting, Susan H ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84928854883     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511617157.004     Document Type: Chapter

References (52)

1. Victor Nee and Peng Lian, “Sleeping with the Enemy: A Dynamic Model of Declining Political Commitment in State Socialism,” Theory and Society, 23 (1994), pp. 253-296.
2. Terry M. Moe, “The New Economics of Organization,” American Journal of Political Science, 28 (1984), p. 757.
3. In addition to those studies cited in the introduction to this volume, see also Minxin Pei, “China's Governance Crisis,” Foreign Affairs (September 2002), pp. 96-109;
4. Andrew G. Walder, ed., The Waning of the Communist State: Economic Origins of Political Decline in China and Hungary (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1995).
5. Organization Department document No. 52 (1979): “Zhonggong zhongyang zuzhibu guanyu shixing ganbu kaohe zhidu de yijian de tongzhi,” in Renshi gongzuo wenjian xuanbian-ganbu guanli bufen [Selected Documents on Personnel Work-Cadre Management Section] (Beijing: Laodong renshi chubanshe, 1987), pp. 12-15.
6. The following paragraphs draw on Susan H.Whiting, Power andWealth in Rural China: The Political Economy of Institutional Change (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
7. Organization Department document No. 7 (1988): “Zhonggong zhongyang zuzhibu guanyu shixing difang dangzheng lingdao ganbu niandu gongzuo kaohe zhidu de tongzhi,” in Zhongguo renshi nianjian, 1988-89 [Personnel Yearbook of China, 1988-89] (Beijing: Zhongguo renshi chubanshe, 1991).
8. Jiang Zhaoyuan, “Xuanba kaocha ganbu yao zhuzhong gongzuo shiji,” Renmin ribao [People's Daily], July 9, 1985
9. reprinted in Han Qing and Yue Furong, eds., Laodong renshi zhidu gaige wenxuan [Selected Essays on Reform of the Labor and Personnel System] (Changsha: Hunan renmin chubanshe, 1987), pp. 503-5. See also
10. Li Lei, “Shiji shi kaocha ganbu de weiyi biaozhun,” Gongren ribao [Workers’ Daily], September 13, 1985, reprinted in., pp. 506-8; and
11. Yang Bohua, “Jianli yange de ganbu kaohe zhidu,” Beijing ribao [Beijing Daily], July 15, 1985, reprinted in., pp. 509-13.
12. Jiang Zhaoyuan, “Xuanba kaocha ganbu yao zhuzhong gongzuo shiji,” Renmin ribao (People's Daily), July 9, 1985, reprinted in Han and Yue, Selected Essays on Reform of the Labor and Personnel System, pp. 503-5.
13. Yang Bohua, “Jianli yange de ganbu kaohe zhidu,” Beijing ribao [Beijing Daily], July 15, 1985, reprinted in., pp. 509-13.
14. Organization Department document No. 7 (1988), Personnel Yearbook of China, 1988-89.
15. See, for example, He Jizhi, Wei Shixiang, and Lin Luolun, eds., Xiangzhen gongzuo renyuan gangwei guifan [Norms for the Positions of Township Staff Members] (Beijing: Zhongguo renshi chubanshe, 1991), pp. 175-82.
16. “Shenhua ganbu renshi zhidu gaige gangyao” [“Outline on Deepening the Reform of the Cadre Personnel System”], in Guowuyuan gongbao [State Council Bulletin], No. 29 (2000), pp. 5-11.
17. Jiading Party document No. 8 (1989): Zhonggong jiadingxian wei jiadingxian renmin zhengfu, “Guanyu wanshan 1989 nian xiangzhen dang zheng jiguan ganbu kaohe jiangli banfa de tongzhi,” [Notice Regarding Improvement of the Methods of Evaluation and Reward for Cadres in Township Party and Government Organs for 1989] Jiading nianjian, 1988-1990 [Jiading Yearbook 1988-1990], pp. 44-5.
18. The performance criteria for township officials in Yongqing County, Hebei, fall into similar categories, including economic performance (in both industry and agriculture), with specific indicators for township and village industry, party building, family planning, and public order.
19. Author's interview, August 13, 1996. This research draws on interviews with a range of county, township, and village-level officials in the counties of Jiading and Songjiang in suburban Shanghai and Hezheng County in Ganbu. Interviewee's names are not provided in order to protect their identities.
20. Author's interview, September 18, 1997.
21. State cadres (guojia ganbu) are those official state employees who are authorized to be on the state payroll (guojia bianzhi); their base salaries are set according to rank and are guaranteed by the formal state budget. Collective cadres (jiti ganbu) are official state employees whose salaries are not guaranteed by the formal state budget; their salaries are typically financed by “off-budget” (yusuanwai) revenues.
22. “High-powered incentives” have been defined in a variety of ways in the literature. Oliver Williamson uses the term to refer specifically to residual claimant status, whereas others, such as George Baker et al., use it more broadly to refer to reward systems that structure compensation so that an agent's expected utility, typically expressed in monetary terms, increases with observed performance. This chapter employs the latter sense of the term. See Oliver E. Williamson, The Economic Institutions of Capitalism (New York: Free Press, 1985), p. 132; and
23. George P. Baker, Michael C. Jensen, and Kevin J. Murphy, “Compensation and Incentives: Practice vs. Theory,” Journal of Finance, 43 (July 1988), pp. 593-616, esp. p. 594. See also
24. George P. Baker, “Incentive Contracts and Performance Measurement,” Journal of Political Economy, 100, No. 3 (1992), pp. 598-614, esp. p. 609;
25. Pascal Courty and Gerald R. Marschke, “Moral Hazard Under Incentive Systems: The Case of a Federal Bureaucracy,” in Gary D. Libecap, ed., Advances in the Study of Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Economic Growth: Reinventing Government and the Problem of Bureaucracy (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1996), p. 157;
26. Francine LaFontaine and Margaret E. Slade, “Retail Contracting: Theory and Practice,” Journal of Industrial Economics, 45 (March 1997) pp. 1-25; and
27. Bengt Homstrom and Paul Milgrom, “The Firm as an Incentive System,” American Economic Review, 84 (September 1994), pp. 972-991.
28. Baker et al., “Compensation and Incentives,” p. 595.
29. This section draws on Susan H.Whiting, “Contract Incentives and Market Discipline in China's Rural Industrial Sector,” in John McMillan and Barry Naughton, eds., Reforming Asian Socialism: The Growth of Market Institutions (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press), pp. 63-110.
30. Other case study evidence produces similar findings. Yan Yunxiang reports that bonuses constituted 80 percent of village leaders’ incomes in Xiajia Village, Heilongjiang. Yan Yunxiang, “Everyday Power Relations: Changes in a North China Village,” in Walder, ed., The Waning of the Communist State, p. 227.
31. Baker et al., “Compensation and Incentives,” p. 595.
32. Author's interview, February 10, 1992. Susan Shirk identifies a similar phenomenon at the provincial level: “Under the post-1980 incentive structure, the political ambitions of individual local officials became closely identified with the economic accomplishments of their domains….Whether officials aimed to climb the ladder of success to Beijing or to become leading figures on the local scene, their reputation was enhanced by industrial growth and local building projects.” Susan L. Shirk, The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993), pp. 189-90.
33. Wang, Weifang, “Ganbu kaohe he tiaozheng lingdao banzi,” in Jiading Yearbook, 1988-1990, p. 62.
34. According to Thrainn Eggertsson, “Moral hazard arises in the enforcement of contracts when the performance of an agent is too costly to be observed as a whole and is measured at only one or a few margins. This may induce an agent to neglect various aspects of his or her assignments and concentrate on performing well [only] in the measured dimensions.” Thrainn Eggertsson, Economic Behavior and Institutions (NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 44-45.
35. Baker et al., “Compensation and Incentives,” p. 597.
36. It was also the case in other locales. See, for example, He Baoshan et al., on Jiangsu Province. He Baoshan, Gu Jirui, Yan Yinglong, Bao Zongshun, eds., Jiangsu nongcun feinonghua fazhan yanjiu [Research on the Non-agricultural Development of Rural Jiangsu] (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1991), p. 121.
37. Shanghai gongye jingji bao [Shanghai Industrial Economy], June 15, 1989, p. 1. See also
38. Wang Xiaolu, “Capital Formation and Utilization,” inWilliam Byrd and Lin Qingsong, eds., China's Rural Industry (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 241.
39. Jiading Party document No. 8 (1989): “Zhonggong jiadingxian wei jiadingxian renmin zhengfu, ‘Guanyu wanshan 1989 nian xiangzhen dang zheng jiguan ganbu kaohe jiangli banfa de tongzhi,’” in Jiading nianjian, 1988-1990 [Jiading Yearbook 1988-1990], pp. 44-5.
40. Author's interview, April 17, 1992.
41. Susan H. Whiting, Power and Wealth in Rural China: The Political Economy of Institutional Change (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
42. Author's interview, April 22, 1992.
43. Central Party and State Council document No. 13 (1996): “Guanyu qieshi zuohao jianqing nongmin fudan gongzuo de jueding,” in Guowuyuan gongbao [State Council Bulletin], No. 12 (1997), p. 563-8.
44. Author's interviews, August 13, 1996 and September 18, 1997. Kevin O’Brien and Lianjiang Li report similar findings. Kevin O’Brien and Lianjiang Li, “Selective Policy Implementation in Rural China,” Comparative Politics, 31 (January 1999), pp. 167-186;
45. See also Maria Eden, “State Capacity and Local Agent Control in China: CCP Cadre Management from a Township Perspective,” China Quarterly 173 (March 2003), pp. 35-52, esp. p. 39.
46. Baker et al., “Compensation and Incentives,” p. 599.
47. “Shenhua ganbu renshi zhidu gaige gangyao” [“Outline on Deepening the Reform of the Cadre Personnel System”], in Guowuyuan gongbao [State Council Bulletin] No. 29 (2000), pp. 5-11.
48. Nee and Lian, “Sleeping with the Enemy,” p. 255.
49. The authors define opportunism as “market-oriented entrepreneurship and rent-seeking” (p. 268). This line of argument is similar to that of Andrew Walder, who has also argued that the party-state has experienced significant decay. He attributes it to the economic reforms. See
50. Andrew G. Walder, “The Quiet Revolution fromWithin: Economic Reform as a Source of Political Decline,” in Walder, ed., The Waning of the Communist State, pp. 1-24.
51. Nee and Lian conceptualize payoffs primarily in terms of personal, material gain. However, they recognize three types of party cadres: true believers, middle-of-the-roaders, and pure opportunists. Their model is most relevant to the latter two types of cadres, who are susceptible, to a greater or lesser degree, to the lure of personal, material gain. Nee and Lian, “Sleeping with the Enemy,” pp. 274-5.
52. It “equals the total payoff minus the payoff to opportunists divided by the number of committors.” Nee and Lian, “Sleeping with the Enemy,” p. 269.