Performance Legitimacy, State Autonomy and China's Economic Miracle

Towards Solidarity and Recognition?

“…In the meantime, social policy development and government spending had helped China's authoritarian state to maintain economic growth and perfor mance based legitimacy (Yang and Zhao, 2014). Theoretically, social policy is ASIAN JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE 43 (2015) 103-124 TOWARDS SOLIDARITY AND RECOGNITION?…”

“…Since 2002, with greater fiscal capacity generated from the booming economy, China's new leaders turned their attention to social policies aiming at coping with the negative unintended consequences of the neoliberal economic poli cies of the 1990s (Yang and Zhao, 2014). The m ost significant social policies include social benefits as a rural cooperative medical system and free nine-year compulsory education, and social regulation of Labour Contract Law.…”

Making Bureaucracy Work: Patronage Networks, Performance Incentives, and Economic Development in China

“…Mao Zedong, for example, used a group of personal loyalists to carry out several political campaigns with disastrous economic consequences, such as the Great Leap Forward (Yang, Xu, and Tao 2014) and the Cultural Revolution (MacFarquhar and Schoenhals 2006). As the regime's basis of legitimacy shifted toward economic performance in the reform era (Yang and Zhao 2015), there was evidence that these networks were being redirected toward achieving more welfare-improving goals, such as incentivizing policy reforms and development initiatives. 18 In a well-known example, Deng Xiaoping relied on two of his loyal protégés, Wan Li and Zhao Ziyang, to spearhead agriculture reforms in key provinces during the late 1970s when the overall political climate was still against economic liberalization (Cai and Treisman 2006).…”

“…20 Under this system, most officials at a given administrative level are appointed by authority at the level immediately above (Landry 2008). is evidence that the public attributes credit for performance asymmetrically across different levels of government; the higher level typically receives more legitimacy gains from good performance than the lower level (Lü 2014). While political legitimacy is ultimately a concern of the national leadership (Yang and Zhao 2015), provincial leaders, by virtue of their closeness to the central leaders, are much more likely to internalize this preference than lower-level officials. 21 Second, the assignment of punishment in the system also follows a highly asymmetric pattern.…”

The impact of economic well-being on perceptions of anti-corruption performance: Evidence from China

“…This is particularly true in authoritarian systems where regimes and rulers are fused, and political legitimacy does not rest upon free elections but on certain unique characteristics and capabilities of political leaders (Chen, 1997). Economic success and subsequent improvement in people's living standards contribute to performance-based legitimacy (Yang & Zhao, 2014).…”