Suchergebnisse

AbstractRuling party strength is often associated with positive outcomes in autocracies, but we know little about how the effects of party strength differ across party types or which feature of party organization contributes most to better outcomes. This article argues that party infrastructural strength – the ability of grassroots party organizations to penetrate society and mobilize the masses – improves governance outcomes but only for authoritarian parties that rose to power through social movements that overthrew the existing political system. Parties that relied on mass mobilization to gain power tend to continue utilizing party strength to provide public goods and gather support. I provide empirical support for my theory using data covering all autocratic ruling parties during the post-Second World War period. The findings have major implications for understanding the intellectual and political challenges posed by well-organized one-party regimes.

AbstractThe role of political parties in facilitating authoritarian rule has been the subject of extensive research, but parties vary widely in their institutional strength to perform regime-bolstering functions. This article synthesizes existing literature to develop a general theory that explains the sources of ruling party strength in autocracies. We argue that party strength stems from a strategic calculation by political actors who weigh the benefits of building a strong party against its costs. The relative benefits of strong parties depend on the stage of the authoritarian life cycle and factors specific to the strategic environment. The observable implications of the theory are tested using a dataset that includes all autocratic ruling parties that were in power between 1940 and 2015. Consistent with our argument, parties that originated from revolutions tend to be the strongest, whereas those created to support an incumbent dictator tend to be the weakest. A country's resource endowments and external environment also shape the dynamics for party building.

In the reform era, the Chinese state often resorts to managed campaigns to implement important policies. This article examines how managed campaign influences the mode of bureaucratic operation in China. Avoiding a simplistic dichotomy between campaign mobilization and bureaucratic institutionalization, this study unpacks the Weberian bureaucratic concept and shows that some core dimensions of the model are compatible with managed campaign. While the pressure of mobilization tend to compromise functional differentiation and strict adherence to stable rules, they can reinforce other dimensions such as top-down control in a multilevel hierarchy and procedural integrity. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has configured the bureaucracy to serve its organizational and political needs, resulting in a mode of operation that partially conforms to the Western standard of public administration. (J Contemp China/GIGA)

How does leadership succession influence the dynamics of electoral competition in authoritarian regimes? Previous studies suggest that leadership successions tend to result in more competitive elections, creating favorable conditions for political changes. The literature, however, has not examined how the electoral impact of succession depends on specific mechanisms of succession management. We argue that the outgoing leader's clear designation of a successor plays an important role in neutralizing the electoral impact of succession. Clear designation, defined as the appointment of a "second-in-command," prevents unbridled power struggle among ruling elites and grooms the successor for the leadership role. We support this argument by analyzing an original dataset covering over 400 elections in 60 authoritarian regimes. This article adds to the burgeoning literature regarding the effects of elections and institution-building on authoritarian resilience.

AbstractIn electorally contested regimes, the incumbent party often uses clientelist exchanges to stay in power long after its underlying electoral support has evaporated. Existing studies failed to examine how the role of clientelism changes with the increasing tenure of the incumbent party. Combining data from the Afrobarometer project and information about partisan turnover, this article shows that the longer a party has remained in power, the more clientelist exchanges in the form of club goods and patronage will serve to bolster popular support for the ruling party. This is mainly because lengthy party duration facilitates the politicization of bureaucracy and other state resources essential for clientelist exchanges. Understanding the evolving role of clientelism under electoral contestation has profound implications for the study of phenomena such as dominant-party rule and democratic erosion.

AbstractRecent scholarship of comparative authoritarianism suggests that party institutions contribute to regime resilience by facilitating power-sharing among the party elites and preventing the paramount leaders' abuse of power that undermines political stability. Existing studies tend to focus on the empirical association between party organizations and regime resilience, whereas the actual effects of institutions on elite behavior receive less attention. This paper conducts an in-depth study of China's appointment system to examine whether the CCP's power-sharing institutions indeed constrain the person- nel authority of the party's paramount leader. Using a unique dataset of provincial leadership appointment from 1992 to 2014, the empirical analysis reveals that the General Secretary enjoys what can be described as 'constrained supremacy' in the making of personnel decisions: the leader can boost his own position by providing favorable treatment to key supporters, but the formal arrangement of collective decision-making constrains rampant reward of patronage that would unsettle the balance among the regime's top elites. The findings of the paper lay bare the diffculty of capturing the inner workings of authoritarian politics with broad, cross-national indicators of regime type; they also illustrate the complicated interaction between formal institutions and informal, personal logic of exercising power in authoritarian regimes.

AbstractIn authoritarian regimes, anticorruption measures are fundamentally mechanisms of controlling agents at various levels. To do this, the principal can either rely on routine bureaucratic management or resort toad hoc, intense mobilization to discipline its agents. Using China as a case study, this article explores which mode of top-down control exerts greater influence on the pattern of anticorruption enforcement. We focus on the cadre rotation system as an example of routine management techniques and examine its effects on provincial level enforcement. We also investigate how provinces respond to the central government's periodic call to intensify anticorruption efforts. Based on provincial enforcement data from 1998 to 2013, our analysis finds that the proportion of rotated officials has little impact on enforcement outcomes. Rather, the vigor of enforcement in the provinces responds strongly to national policy priorities, suggesting a highly centralized disciplinary system. Moreover, provinces of greater political importance are under more central pressure to conform. The findings challenge the often-made argument that stable institutions are effective in fostering top-down control in authoritarian regimes, and suggest that campaign mobilization continues to be an essential instrument at the dictator's disposal.

Since the early 1990s, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has put in place a series of measures to allow more Party members to participate in the cadre selection process. "Intra-party democracy" was promoted as a remedy to solve the corruption and social tension that resulted from overly concentrated personnel power. How effective are these formal procedures in constraining the appointment power of core Party leaders and institutionalizing the influence of a larger group of cadres? Drawing on archival research, interviews and quantitative data, this paper examines two components of intra-party democratic reform: "democratic recommendation," which serves as a gateway to cadre promotion, and the semi-competitive elections at Party congresses. This in-depth study finds that the efforts to expand bottom-up participation are hindered by loopholes in formal regulations, informal practices and the frequent rotation of Party officials. Meanwhile, the reform measures have brought changes to the personnel system by complicating the Party secretaries' exercise of appointment power and altering the incentives of ambitious cadres. The implementation of intra-party democracy could improve the vitality of one-party rule, and its ebbs and flows imply a divide within China's top leadership over the direction of political change. (China Q/GIGA)

AbstractSince the early 1990s, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has put in place a series of measures to allow more Party members to participate in the cadre selection process. "Intra-party democracy" was promoted as a remedy to solve the corruption and social tension that resulted from overly concentrated personnel power. How effective are these formal procedures in constraining the appointment power of core Party leaders and institutionalizing the influence of a larger group of cadres? Drawing on archival research, interviews and quantitative data, this paper examines two components of intra-party democratic reform: "democratic recommendation," which serves as a gateway to cadre promotion, and the semi-competitive elections at Party congresses. This in-depth study finds that the efforts to expand bottom-up participation are hindered by loopholes in formal regulations, informal practices and the frequent rotation of Party officials. Meanwhile, the reform measures have brought changes to the personnel system by complicating the Party secretaries' exercise of appointment power and altering the incentives of ambitious cadres. The implementation of intra-party democracy could improve the vitality of one-party rule, and its ebbs and flows imply a divide within China's top leadership over the direction of political change.

The current Chinese leadership that assumed power in late 2012 has launched an anti-corruption campaign that is unprecedented in magnitude. The sheer number of high-level officials cracked down by the Communist Party's disciplinary body prompts a much speculated question in China studies: how do the dynamics of informal networks affect the Party's disciplinary punishment of senior cadres? This article initiates the answering of this question with systematic evidence. The authors highlight the threat of rectification campaigns hanging over the bureaucratic system and thus inducing officials to attach themselves to powerful patrons whose protection offers pivotal career security for lower-level clients. Based on the authors' findings from a sample of over 500 provincial officials in office when the current campaign started, those tied to incumbent members of the Politburo Standing Committee were less likely to be investigated for corruption than those without such ties. Factional ties with retired members of the same body, however, did not provide similar protection. The authors' analysis helps explain the pervasiveness of personal dependence and factional activities in China's political system and also sheds light on the complex interaction of informal rules and formal institutions in authoritarian regimes. (China/GIGA)