Elite Dualism and Leadership Selection in China

Xiaowei Zang

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2004
• Print ISBN: 9780415322348
• eBook ISBN: 9781134353606
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Who are the top political leaders in China? What are the major criteria in elite recruitment? How is job promotion in high politics determined? By studying over one and a half thousand top political Chinese leaders, this book seeks to answer these questions and, as a result, defines how Chinese leadership is stratified. Unlike existing research on Chinese leaders, Elite Dualism and Leadership Selection in China draws on extensive statistical information and data analysis. It evidences how political development in the reform era has led to the division of labour between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the government in governance, leading to two distinctive career paths in the two political systems respectively. Key issues examined include:

* the different criteria the CCP and the government demand

* the requirements for promotion

* the effect of university education on the rate of mobility

* the different affiliations of the two groups

* the role of cooptation in leadership selection.

Many of the elites discussed are still leading figures in China, making this book the most up-to-date and extensive biographical data set in elite studies. This allows for a meaningful analysis of elite behaviour in China for the first time in Chinese Studies. This book will be useful to both students of Chinese studies and comparative politics and will also interest researchers, political commentators, statesmen and China-watchers.

1

Introduction

The political elite is a central element of Chinese politics because it monopolizes resources, information and power in the People’s Republic of China (the PRC). Much has been written about the Chinese political leadership, especially with regard to elite structure and politics.¹ Yet little is known about the elite itself.² Who are the men and women that make up the elite? What are their basic characteristics? Why are they chosen? What are major selection criteria? Who is likely to be promoted in the Chinese political hierarchy? Using an institutional approach, I study some key aspects of elite formation in the reform era in this book. More specifically, I ask the following questions:

1. how is job assignment in high politics determined? Do different political institutions recruit candidates with different combinations of human and political capital?
2. how is the Chinese leadership stratified? What are the relative roles of institutional affiliation, political credentials, and human capital in promotion?
3. what are the major determinants of mobility rates? Is the speed of promotion related to institutional distinction?
4. are there distinctive career paths in different political institutions? How is the distribution of careers related to institutional affiliation?
5. to what extent are intellectuals co-opted into the political elite in China? Do different political institutions exhibit different rates of cooptation?
6. finally, is the political elite in China segmented? If it is what are the structural sources of elite segmentation?

The institutional approach with which I study these questions is elite dualism. By elite dualism I mean a segmented bureaucratic labor market in which two distinctive career paths are established to evaluate and screen candidates for top posts in the Chinese government system and the hierarchy of the Chinese Communist Party (the CCP) respectively. These two paths diverge mainly in their different emphases on the role of political and human capital in career trajectory.³

The major arguments and findings from this book include:

1. political development in the reform era has enhanced the division of labor between the CCP and the government in governance, leading to two distinctive career paths in these two systems. Specifically, all candidates for elite positions are screened for human capital and political credentials. But those on paths to government positions are screened more vigorously for human capital whereas those on paths to the CCP hierarchy are evaluated more vigorously for political loyalty.
2. CCP seniority plays a larger role in career advancement in the CCP hierarchy than in the government system. The requirement for human capital for promotion in the government system is higher than that in the CCP hierarchy. The presence of particularism in promotion processes is stronger in the CCP hierarchy than in the government system.
3. university education increases mobility rates in general and those in the government system in particular.
4. cadres with professional and administrative career backgrounds are likely to enter the government system whereas cadres with propaganda and party work experience tend to be affiliated with the CCP hierarchy.
5. cooptation plays an important role in leadership selection in China. The government system is more likely to co-opt intellectuals and professionals than the CCP hierarchy.

These findings illustrate the distinctive career paths in the CCP hierarchy and the government system that weigh human and political capital differently in elite recruitment. The bureaucratic labor market is segmented, with institutional distinction becoming a key variable in leadership selection in China. This reflects the increasing institutionalization of Chinese politics. These findings motivate me to reinterpret the party-state relations, pointing out the division of labor in governance between the CCP and government. I also use these findings to model patterns of elite selection in post-Mao China, to show that the current Chinese leadership is a political technocracy rather than simply a technocracy, and to explain institutional development in post-Mao China.

These endeavors contribute to Chinese studies in the following aspects: I challenge the conventional wisdom that the political elite in state socialism is monolithic; conduct an empirical study of the new institutionalism; argue for an increasing emphasis on formal politics in Chinese studies; and introduce the mainstream social science theories and methods into the study of elite behavior in China.

Finally, how does elite dualism contribute to our understanding of Chinese politics? Elite dualism suggests: less informal politics and more formal politics in the reform era; an increasing link between policy making and institutional arrangements; efficient governance because of the division of labor among different political institutions; a reduced base for political dissent among intellectuals because of cooptation; and elite coherence and political stability in China.

Data

This book is an empirical study of a data set that includes 1,588 top political leaders in China, who hold deputy provincial governorship or higher positions in the Chinese political hierarchy (Table 1.1). In other words, I focus on the apex or nucleus (leaders of the PRC central government and the CCP central organizations) and the immediately adjacent echelons (provincial leaders) of the Chinese political system. These leaders are appointed and managed centrally by the CCP.⁴ Of course, this is not to say that Chinese officials not included in this study, such as the head of the industrial bureau in a provincial government, are not part of the political elite in the PRC. Yet when compared to the sampled leaders, they belong to the “peripheral” sector of the political elite and command rather limited political influence.

Table 1.1 Leadership positions in China, 1988 and 1994

Position	1988 (% in parentheses)	1994 (% in parentheses)
Councilor and above	18 (1.8)	18 (2.1)
Minister	56 (7.6)	57 (6.7)
Vice minister	198 (26.8)	213 (25.1)
Central government bureau head	31 (4.2)	48 (5.7)
Provincial secretary	30 (4.1)	30 (3.5)
Provincial governor	30 (4.1)	30 (3.5)
Provincial deputy secretary	100 (13.5)	97 (11.4)
Provincial deputy governor	157 (21.2)	189 (22.3)
Provincial discipline secretary	29 (3.9)*	30 (3.5)
CCP minister	31 (4.2)	56 (6.6)
CCP vice-minister	42 (6.2)	68 (8.0)
CCP bureau head	14 (1.9)	12 (1.4)
Total	740 (100.0)	848 (100.0)

Note

* Data on Yi Jun, discipline secretary of the CCP Yunnan provincial committee, are not available.

To date, 740 cases are identified for the 1988 elite and 848 cases for the 1994 elite. Many of the leaders included in the data set such as Mr. Hu Jintao, General Secretary of the CCP and President of the PRC, Mr. Wen Jiabao, member of the Standing Committee of the CCP’s Politburo and Premier of the State Council, Mr. Wu Bangguo, member of the Standing Committee of the CCP’s Politburo and Vice Premier of the State Council, and Ms. Wu Yi, member of the CCP’s Politburo and Vice Premier, are still leading figures in the PRC.⁵ Some powerful leaders who are no longer members of the CCP’s Politburo such as Jiang Zemin are also listed in the data set. Finally, the CCP’s Seventeenth Central Committee elected in November 2002 will govern China till 2007. The data set contains information on 84 percent of the Politburo of the Seventeenth Central Committee (21 of 25) and nearly 43 percent of the Seventeenth Central Committee (85 out of 198).

Included in the biographies are names, dates of birth, gender, ethnicity, party membership, date of joining the CCP, university attended, academic discipline majored, and the like. To the best of my knowledge, this is the most extensive and up-to-date biographical data set of the political elite, which allows for the first time a meaningful quantitative analysis of leadership selection in China.

The main data source for this study is Who’s Who in China, Current Leaders, compiled for 1989 and 1994 respectively.⁶ Such printed biographical sources have been frequently used to identify leading figures in both capitalist and socialist societies.⁷ Other data sources for this study include various issues of China: Facts & Figures and various issues of China Directory.⁸ To further establish my confidence in the reliability and accuracy of the data set, I used other data sources to cross-examine the information presented in Who’s Who.⁹ No significant discrepancies have been detected. Readers interested in the data set can refer to Appendix.

Variables and Measurements

The method with which I manipulate the data set is the conventional status attainment model widely used in social science research. Specifically, I treat the characteristics of individual leaders as the key attributes that define the elite. That is, I consider the elite from the perspective of how its members “score” on the variables of various personal attributes.¹⁰ The characteristics of the Chinese leaders are viewed as an aggregate profile and analyzed so as to unearth patterns and regularities that are theoretically significant.

This methodological approach determines that the usual predictors of socioeconomic achievement such as education and age ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• 1. Introduction
• 2. An institutional explanation of elite dualism in China
• 3. Dualism in historical perspective
• 4. The Cultural Revolution and the leadership transition in the reform era
• 5. Dualism and job assignment
• 6. Dualism and promotion
• 7. Dualism and mobility rates
• 8. Dualism and career histories
• 9. Dualism and cooptation
• 10. Dualism and the political elite in China
• Appendix: methodology
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index