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The Elusive Pursuit of Incentive Systems: Research on the Cadre Management Regime in Post-Mao China

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Abstract

This essay reviews recent scholarship on four key components of the post-Mao party state’s cadre management regime—nomenklatura system, cadre performance evaluation system, bianzhi, and the Party school system. This review suggests that findings of each group of studies are clouded by a great deal of uncertainty due to the complexity and secrecy of the Chinese bureaucratic structure and politics, and that this uncertainty thus challenges the confidence level of research applying these findings to explain cadre behavior. The review also detects a common disconnect both within and among these groups of studies that has prevented a more accurate understanding of the workings of the cadre management regime. This review serves to catalyze rethinking of the dominant theory of how control and incentivizing mechanisms of the personnel management institutions can predict individual behavior. Based on these findings, future research should start thinking seriously and creatively about how to overcome the challenge of obtaining data on the cadre management regime amid an increasingly conservative political climate within the country, exacerbated by strained U.S.-China relations. Moreover, intellectual cross-fertilization both within individual groups of scholarship and among them is needed to fully capture the intricate dynamics between control mechanisms of the bureaucratic apparatuses and cadre behavior.

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Notes

  1. [43].

  2. [5],[17].

  3. [5].

  4. [63].

  5. [34].

  6. [5],[7, 9].

  7. [64],[54].

  8. [76].

  9. [5].

  10. [58],[21].

  11. Buckley, Chris, and Adam Wu. 2018. “Ending term limits for China’s Xi is a big deal. Here’s why,” The New York Times, 10 March, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/world/asia/china-xi-jinping-term-limit-explainer.html. Accessed 7 October 2020.

  12. [48],[11,12,13],[18].

  13. [18], 719.

  14. [31], 115.

  15. [43],[5],[39].

  16. [59].

  17. [42].

  18. [50].

  19. [44].

  20. [33].

  21. [46].

  22. [51].

  23. [37].

  24. [3],[53],[55],[47].

  25. [48], 216–217,[13].

  26. [4],[44],[78].

  27. [39].

  28. [57],[20].

  29. [57].

  30. [40].

  31. [29].

  32. [20].

  33. [57].

  34. [33],[4],[44],[20].

  35. [38, 39].

  36. [36].

  37. [29],[46].

  38. [40].

  39. [44],[78].

  40. [29],[46].

  41. [4],[40].

  42. [44].

  43. [57].

  44. [51].

  45. [71].

  46. [22].

  47. [72].

  48. [49].

  49. [65].

  50. [35].

  51. [1].

  52. [66].

  53. [10].

  54. [32],[27],[61].

  55. [1].

  56. [65].

  57. [27].

  58. [48],[35], 939.

  59. [22], 41–42,[72], 109–112.

  60. [67], 391.

  61. [36], 486.

  62. [70].

  63. [30], 1054.

  64. Ibid.

  65. [71],[22], 40,[78],[19], 7.

  66. [22], 45,[35], 943–947.

  67. Yao, Xueqing. 2016. “Jiangsu Taizhou jiang jixiao kaohe jieguo yu ganbu ‘mianzi’ ‘weizi’ ‘piaozi’ guagou” (Cadres’ ‘face,’ ‘position’ and ‘money’ are tied to PES results), People’s Daily, 30 March.

  68. [15], 74,[16], 15.

  69. [67].

  70. [30], 1055–1056.

  71. [26], 69S-70S.

  72. [69].

  73. [16], 15.

  74. [67].

  75. [22],[35].

  76. [67].

  77. [27].

  78. [79], 340.

  79. [67].

  80. A caveat is that the term of bianzhi in Chinese language actually carries a wider range of meanings than what it often denotes in the scholarly literature on the CCP’s personnel management regime. Another common use of bianzhi refers to the drafting plans for government programs. For example, shisi wu guihua bianzhi (十四五规划编制, The drafting plan for the 14th Five-Year Plan). I thank the anonymous reviewer for this semantic clarification.

  81. Note that bianzhi covers everyone employed, as opposed to just leading cadres managed by the nomenklatura [23], 179,[8], 103–105).

  82. [74].

  83. Works focus or touch on bianzhi include, for example, [6, 8],[14],[25],[23],[2].

  84. [74].

  85. At the time of this writing, the only exception I am aware of is a working paper [60] that explores the effect of rural physicians’ bianzhi status on their performance.

  86. The 2019 national exam, for example, had 1.4 million test takers competing for 24,000 government jobs. That is about 1-in-60 chance of success. See, Wu, Wendy. 2019. “China’s civil service exam attracts 1.4 million applicants with eyes on the prize of an ‘iron rice bowl’ job,” South China Morning Post, 24 November, https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3039116/chinas-civil-service-exam-attracts-14-million-applicants-eyes. Accessed 7 October 2020.

  87. [6], 367.

  88. Xinhuanet.com. 2018. “Authorized release of ‘The Civil Servant Law of the People’s Republic of China,’” 30 December, http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2018-12/30/c_1123927123.htm. Accessed 26 April 2021.

  89. For example, [6, 8].

  90. [74].

  91. I thank the anonymous reviewer for pointing out this practice.

  92. [6], 366–369.

  93. [2], 687–688.

  94. Xinhuanet.com. 2018. “The Chinese Communist Party Central Committee releases ‘The Proposal to Deepen the Reform of Party and State Institutions’,” 21 March, http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2018-03/21/c_1122570517.htm. Accessed 7 October 2020.

  95. E.g., [24],[73],[56],[45],[52],[77],[41],[62].

  96. [24],[73],[56],[45],[77].

  97. [52].

  98. [62].

  99. [41].

  100. [73].

  101. [24],[56].

  102. [41].

  103. [52].

  104. [56], 839.

  105. Ibid.

  106. [41], 88.

  107. [56], 844.

  108. [62].

  109. [28],[68].

  110. [75].

  111. [41].

  112. [75].

  113. “China firm on achieving development goals of 2020, though setting no specific growth target”, May 22, 2020, http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-05/22/c_139078608.htm.

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Wang, Z. The Elusive Pursuit of Incentive Systems: Research on the Cadre Management Regime in Post-Mao China. J OF CHIN POLIT SCI 26, 573–592 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11366-021-09745-4

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