Friends with benefits: Patronage networks and distributive politics in China

Jiang, Junyan; Zhang, Muyang

doi:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104143

Cited by 77 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…In fact, provincial leaders have incentive to cater to the interests of lower-level bureaucrats. Apart from distributing patronage to local governments and officials based on social ties and personal connections (Persson and Zhuravskaya 2016; Jiang and Zhang 2020), provincial leaders need support from lower-level officials to secure their own careers against political uncertainty and risk (Shih 2008; Li and Liu 2016; Zhu and Zhang 2017). Moreover, many studies have noted that even in a country with strong state capacity like China, policy mandates from above still largely depend on lower-level officials, who can significantly influence policy implementation and its consequences by selectively conducting some policies while blocking others (O'Brien and Li 1999, Tsai 2006, Li and Zhang 2018).…”

Section: Land Fiscalization Under Local Developmentalism In Chinamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recently, a growing body of literature has investigated how, in the absence of mass elections, autocrats offer preferential benefits to bureaucrats and inner-circle followers to secure loyalty and support. Most of those studies focus on how incumbent power holders allocate public expenditures and transfers to lower-level officials, based either on personal connections between patrons and clients (Lü and Liu 2019; Jiang and Zhang 2020) or on central-government policy priorities, which necessitate doling out benefits to local bureaucrats to implement the policy mandates (Belova and Lazarev 2013; Ang 2016). Our study calls attention to a new factor from a political-structure perspective—namely, how power distribution among subnational leaders motivates the leadership as a whole to offer policy compromises to local bureaucrats.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Power Distribution and Distributive Politics in Local Developmental States: Evidence from China's Subnational Land Fiscalization

Zhang

Hou

2022

J. East Asian Stud.

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Land fiscalization in China is a local development strategy intended to tilt the distribution of interests disproportionately toward local officials. We propose that the degree of power concentration among provincial Chinese leaders affects their need for support from lower-level bureaucrats. The more that power is dispersed among provincial leaders, the more they are incentivized to dispense benefits to local officials. To test this hypothesis, we used provincial-year panel data spanning 2003–2012 to examine how power concentration among provincial leaders affected land fiscalization within their jurisdictions. The empirical results robustly supported the hypothesis.

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Section: Land Fiscalization Under Local Developmentalism In Chinamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Power Distribution and Distributive Politics in Local Developmental States: Evidence from China's Subnational Land Fiscalization

Zhang

Hou

2022

J. East Asian Stud.

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“…The data on city officials are from the China Political Elite Database (CPED), constructed by Jiang (2018) and Jiang and Zhang (2020). The database consists of more than 4,000 Chinese leaders, covering all city leaders in office since 2000 and all provincial and national leaders since the mid-1990s.…”

Section: Biographical Database For Chinese Leadersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bureaucrats, Tournament Competition, and Performance Manipulation: Evidence from Chinese Cities

Xu¹,

Xu²,

Si³

2022

Policy Research Working Papers

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The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

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“…Nevertheless, informal institutions are of growing interest to China specialists. More recent studies prove that informal politics, particularly as seen in the factionalism of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), help to explain a wide range of political and economic outcomes in China (Wang 2000; Shih 2004; Bai, Hsieh, and Song 2020; Jiang and Zhang 2020). This implies that factional ties may assist the CCP's local bureaucracies in their efforts to compete for economic resources and improve development performance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Informal Political Coalitions and Private Investment in China

Liu¹

2021

J. East Asian Stud.

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This article attempts to estimate the effects of informal political coalitions on China's private investment. Theoretically, the party-state clients of China's supreme leaders are expected to have stronger incentives to foster economic growth. One way of doing so is to encourage private investment by reducing its political risks. Analysis of provincial-level panel data from 1993 to 2017 shows that personal connections—based on shared experience in the same work unit—between provincial leaders and the Chinese Communist Party's incumbent supreme leader significantly increase the growth rate of private investment. This suggests that informal institutional relations may assist the development of China's private economy by partially compensating for the weaknesses of formal rule-of-law institutions.

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Friends with benefits: Patronage networks and distributive politics in China

Cited by 77 publications

References 39 publications

Power Distribution and Distributive Politics in Local Developmental States: Evidence from China's Subnational Land Fiscalization

Power Distribution and Distributive Politics in Local Developmental States: Evidence from China's Subnational Land Fiscalization

Bureaucrats, Tournament Competition, and Performance Manipulation: Evidence from Chinese Cities

Informal Political Coalitions and Private Investment in China

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