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Using the Performance Evaluation System to Combat Corruption: Promises and Challenges

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Abstract

Drawing on original fieldwork data, this research examines the effectiveness of the Party’s more open and institutionalized but often ignored anticorruption mechanism—the Performance Evaluation System. I argue that its effectiveness is a mixed bag: on one hand, three prominent features of the current PES show great promise to curb cadre corrupt behavior—anticorruption work’s increasing evaluation weight, its newly assigned status of priority targets with veto power, and its highly quantified evaluation method; on the other hand, the ability of the PES to deter cadre corruption is weakened by challenges that constrain the power of its three embedded incentivizing methods.

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Notes

  1. See, e.g., O’Brien and Li (1999, 172) call the system “cadre responsibility system” whereas Chan and Gao (2008, 4) and Gao (2015, 618) refer to it as “the target-based responsibility system.”

  2. Interview with township official, Xuan’en 宣恩 county, Hubei, 2 June 2017.

  3. See, e.g., Heberer and Trappel 2013, 1054; and Gao (2015, 628–629) discusses the “symbolic values of the title of ‘outstanding.”

  4. I thank the reviewer for raising this point.

  5. Interview with township official, Tangshan, Hebei, 19 June 2017.

  6. I was only able to secure a portion of the county’s 2017 PES that does not contain the more specific evaluation table where there is a detailed breakdown of evaluation weights for each sub-target. But nevertheless, this should still be a safe statement.

  7. Kaiping district carries the same administrative rank as a county does.

  8. Interview with municipal official of government general office, Fuyang, Anhui, 19 June 2014.

  9. Kinkel and Hurst (2015) discuss a similar issue of the “hyper-quantified conditions” in the judicial cadre evaluation system.

  10. Interview with township government head, Huangshantou 黄山头, Hubei, 18 June 2016.

  11. O’Brien and Li (1999, 170) enumerate what constitutes popular and unpopular policies in one paragraph.

  12. Interviews with standing deputy county government head, township deputy party secretary, and village party secretary, Xuan’en, Hubei, 2 June 2017.

  13. Interview with township official, Zhengzhuangzi 郑庄子, Hebei, 19 June 2017.

  14. Interviews: county official, Gong’an, 16 June 2016; township official, Yangjiachang 杨家厂, 16 June 2016; township official, Xuan’en, 2 June 2017.

  15. Interview with township official, Nanping, Hubei, 13 July 2016.

  16. Interview with township official, Nanping, Hubei, 13 July 2016.

  17. Interview with township official, Zhengzhuangzi, Hebei, 19 June 2017.

  18. Interviews: PES official, Fuyang, Anhui, 19 June 2014; official, Yichang, Hubei, 8 July 2014; PES official of Changyang, Hubei, 8 July 2016.

  19. Interview with PES official, Fuyang, Anhui, 19 June 2014.

  20. Interview with municipal official, Yichang, Hubei, 8 July 2014.

  21. Interviews with PES official, Gong’an, Hubei, 12 June 2016 and 1 June 2017.

  22. Interview, county Organization Department officials, Lixin 利辛, Anhui, 12 June 2014.

  23. Interview with township officials, Huangbi’ao 黄避岙, Zhejiang, 12 June 2017.

  24. I thank the reviewer for alerting me to China’s high incidence of obtaining political promotion through bribery. Some scholars have addressed this particular type of corruption (e.g. Zhu 2008) and it further supports my argument that the effectiveness of the PES’s political incentivizing approach is much weaker than commonly assumed.

  25. Interviews: PES official, Gong’an, Hubei, 12 June 2016 and 1 June 2017; county official, Gong’an, Hubei, 15 June 2016; township official, Xuan’en, Hubei, 2 June 2017; township officials, Huangbi’ao, Zhejiang, 12 June 2017.

  26. Interview with township officials, Huangbi’ao, Zhejiang, 12 June 2017.

  27. Interviews: township official, Nanping, Hubei, 13 July 2016; township and village party secretaries, Xuan’en, Hubei, 2 June 2017.

  28. Interview with township official, Nanping, Hubei, 13 July 2016.

  29. Interview with township official, Nanping, Hubei, 13 July 2016.

  30. Interview with township official, Zhengzhuangzi, Hebei, 19 June 2017.

  31. Interview with township official, Zhengzhuangzi, Hebei, 19 June 2017.

  32. Interview with township official, Zhengzhuangzi, Hebei, 19 June 2017.

  33. Interview with county official, Gong’an, Hubei, 9 June 2016.

  34. For a recent example, see, Xinhuanet.com (2017).

  35. Interview with county party school official, Xiangshan, Zhejiang, 9 June 2017.

  36. Interview with township official, Zhengzhuangzi, Hebei, 19 June 2017.

  37. Interview with township official, Zhengzhuangzi, Hebei, 19 June 2017.

  38. Interview with municipal official, Jingzhou, Hubei, 3 July 2014.

  39. Interview with township official, Nanping, Hubei, 13 July 2016.

  40. Interview with township official, Nanping, Hubei, 18 June 2016.

  41. Interview with township official, Yangjiachang, Hubei, 16 June 2016.

  42. Interviews: county PES official, Gong’an, 12 June 2016 and 1 June 2017; township official, Yangjiachang, 16 June 2016; township official, Nanping, 18 June 2016.

  43. Interview with township officials, Huangbi’ao, Zhejiang, 12 June 2017.

  44. I greatly appreciate the reviewer for pointing out this study’s potential for greater generalizability and hence more important contribution to the literature.

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  1. Department of Political Science and International Relations, Middle Tennessee State University, Room 250, Peck Hall, MTSU Box 29, Murfreesboro, TN, 37132, USA

    Zhen Wang

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Wang, Z. Using the Performance Evaluation System to Combat Corruption: Promises and Challenges. Chin. Polit. Sci. Rev. 3, 389–410 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41111-018-0107-1

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