An Assessment of Major Theoretical Perspectives of Elite Recruitment in China
Xiaowei Zang
City University of Hong Kong
What are the main determinants of political elite selection in China? Some scholars highlight the effect of political loyalty in elite mobility (Walder 1986), others suggest a party-sponsored mobility hypothesis (Li and Walder 2001), and still, others define technical training as a key factor in elite formation (Fewsmith 2001; Lee 1991; Li 2001). Using data on top Chinese leaders, I argue for an emphasis on functional differentiation and its effect on elite recruitment in China. By functional differentiation I mean the division of labor in governance between the Chinese government and Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Specifically, the CCP provides leadership by taking on policy-making, matters of political principle, and personnel management, whereas the government implements party policy regarding economic development and social issues (Zhou 1995).
The first section of this paper reviews the three perspectives on elite recruitment in state socialism and puts forward three hypotheses. The second section relies on functional differentiation to develop three hypotheses regarding the division of labor in governance and elite recruitment. The third section uses the data on China’s political elite to test the six hypotheses. Results of the analysis show the link between functional differentiation and the selective emphasis of technical training and political loyalty in leadership recruitment in the reform era. The final section concludes by summarizing the major findings from this paper and assessing the relevancy of the above three perspectives for research on elite selection in China.
Dual Careers, Party Patronage, and Technical Training
Studies of stratification and mobility in state socialism have a long history. Some scholars have studied the impact of political loyalty, measured largely in terms of communist party membership, on career opportunities. They have argued that party members enjoy an advantage in career advancement and the allocation of resources (Connor 1979; Feldmesser 1960; Walder 1985, 1986). Indeed, mass survey data have provided evidence that party membership contributes to upward mobility (Bian, Xu, and Logan 2001; Dickson and Rublee 2000; Massey, Hodson, and Sekulic 1992). Yet analysis of these survey data has also found that party membership is not the only important selection criterion. Educational effects “in mobility models are just as great there as in market economies (Walder 1995, p. 311; see also Bian 1994; Inkeles and Bauer 1959; Dickson and Rublee 2000; Meyer, Tuma, and Zagorski 1979). Many scholars have asked how educational credentials and political loyalty are combined to determine political mobility (Walder 1995; Walder, Li, and Treiman. 2000).
Konrad and Szelenyi’s analysis of the Hungarian socialist regime (1979) offers an answer to this question. Konrad and Szelenyi argue for a dual elite hypothesis, namely, the elites in state socialism are divided between politically loyal bureaucrats and better educated professionals. Following this insight, Walder and his associates propose a dual career path model, which measures the effects of party membership and education on mobility by type of career. Namely, “China has a hybrid mobility regime in which the loyalty principles of a political machine are combined with, and segregated from, the meritocratic standards of modern professions” (Walder, Li, and Treiman 2000, pp. 191, 206-7; also Walder 1995).
Using mass survey data from China, Walder and his associates find that party membership is irrelevant for recruitment into elite professions yet vital for entry into administrative elite. A college degree leads to a professional career. However, high educational standards are not enforced in the cadre path. Poor educational attainment among cadres is reinforced by the tendency that professionals rarely become administrators (Walder, Li, and Treiman 2000, p. 191; also Walder 1995). Educated party members were not placed in positions of power. Technocracy was prevented from emerging in China since the cadre elite was not comprised by higher professionals and the college educated (Walder 1995, p. 323; also Walder, Li, and Treiman 2000). Hence:
HYPOTHESIS 1: The college-educated will not be favorably recruited into the political elite.
The dual career path model is subsequently modified by a party-sponsored mobility hypothesis, which focuses on the timing of joining the party, rather than party membership, in an individual’s life. This focus pays scant attention to the role of education in elite selection—Li and Walder argue (2001, pp. 403-4) that the party has recruited preferentially from among young party loyalists, whereas the educated professionals are not sponsored for advancement into the administrative elite.
Li and Walder (2001) summarize that the party-sponsored mobility hypothesis draws the insights from sponsored mobility perspective by Turner (1960) and tournament mobility model by Rosenbaum (1976, 1979, 1984) respectively. It proposes that elites are chosen from among party members, but only those who join the party while young are eventually chosen. Admission into a ruling communist party does not in itself elevate a member to elite status because the party is a mass organization. But early party membership resembles a victory in an early tournament, which “qualifies one for competition in the next—events early in the career can alter the outcomes of subsequent competition for career advancement” (Li and Walder 2001, pp. 1,371, 1,376, 1,405). In contrast, party memberships obtained in mid- or late-career do not provide such career advantages. They are largely a symbolic reward or “may have proffered status advantages in other areas of life” (pp. 1,380-1, 1,404-5).
Li and Walder (2001) derive the party-sponsored mobility hypothesis from mass survey data. The cadre elite they study are mostly low-ranking officials (p. 1,394). If party membership obtained in mid- and late-career can hardly qualify one for a cadre post in a local organization (pp. 1,404-5), one can expect that virtually all top Chinese leaders are early joiners. The requirement for sponsorship in elite selection must be much higher at the national than at the grass-roots level. Also, joining the party in mid- or late-career does not signal a higher degree of commitment and does not allow an extended process of observation, cultivation, and training necessary for career advancement in the cadre path (p. 1,380). Hence:
HYPOTHESIS 2: Only those who join the CCP while young will be recruited into the political elite.
The dual career path model is also modified by a technocracy thesis, which insists that it is technical training in engineering/or management that increases the odds of career success in politics. Inspired by early technocracy scholars (Bell 1973; Harbison and Myers 1959; Meynaud 1969), several scholars argue that there has been a drastic shift from the past focus on political qualifications toward an emphasis on technical training in leadership selection in mature state socialist countries where economic development is an important dimension of governance (Bailes 1978; Bialer 1980; Lee 1991; Putnam 1976). Their argument encourages some China experts to consider leadership selection in the reform era as the formation of a technocracy (Lee 1991, 1992; Li 2001; Li and White 1988, 1990; Millis 1983; Wang 1985).
According to the technocracy thesis, technocrats come to power mainly because they possess technical expertise that China needs for economic development. Hence, only those who studied management science, engineering, and applied sciences are favored targets of leadership selection (Li and White 1988, 1990, 1998). Joseph Fewsmith (2001, p. 67) argues that although “the official slogan for the recruitment and promotion of younger officials was to promote ‘more revolutionary, better educated, more professionally competent, and younger,’ in practice the term ‘more revolutionary’ was difficult to define and highly contentious. The result has been to rely on more objective criteria, particularly education and age, for selecting the Party elite and state cadres. Because the social sciences were highly suspect in the early part of the PRC, and even remain so today, there has been a very strong tendency to recruit those who have had technical training, particularly engineering, thus giving China’s political elite a very technocratic cast.” Hence:
HYPOTHESIS 3: Only those with technical training will be recruited into the political elite.
Functional Differentiation and Elite Recruitment
Central to the dual career path hypothesis is the focus on the selective use of education and political loyalty in professions and administrative posts respectively (Walder 1995; Walder, Li, and Treiman 2000). I extend this insight to leadership selection, envisioning a segmented bureaucratic labor market in which political loyalty and technical training are awarded differently in the CCP and government. The dual career path model rules out the probabilities that professionals and intellectuals are a key source of elite recruitment since it is premised on a professional career and a political career. Higher education is related to the professional career whereas political loyalty leads to the political career. In comparison, the starting point of my research is the division of labor in governance among political elites. Elite recruitment is based on both political loyalty and educational credentials. The CCP and the government recruit cadres with different combinations of technical training and political loyalty because of their different institutional tasks. The differences in returns to technical training and political loyalty should remain with control for other individual characteristics.
I start with the observation that the CCP is a Leninist party by nature. A Leninist party maintains its integrity and coherence by emphasizing hierarchy and concentration of power in the hands of its top leaders. Such emphases turn the Leninist party into a powerful organizational weapon in its struggle for political power. Yet uniformity and hierarchy create problems in governance for the Leninist party when it shifts its attention from revolutionary campaigns to economic development in the post-revolutionary era.
This is because economic development leads to scale and complexity, which in turn entail specialized knowledge and the division of labor and authority among institutions of a political system. The institutions must develop separate functions in order to facilitate the successful resolution of problems of industrialization. There should be among them differences in the skills required to perform different tasks as functional differentiation permits more efficient expenditures of collective resources and more effective attainment of collective goals. For example, the ruling Leninist party can focus on policy-making and supervision of policy implementation, whereas government officials can be given power to execute issues of administration and economic management (Shirk 1992; Zheng 1997). The interests of the political system can be best served through the division of labor among its components.
The division of labor in governance by no means suggests check and balance or the separation of the state from the ruling communist party. The party rules. Functional differentiation is adopted because it enhances rather than undermine the party’s dictatorship. The party ensures its grasp of power by penetrating and controlling various administrative organizations through policy guidance, direct supervision, personnel management, and other creative measures.
Hence, many Leninist parties delegate administrative power to the state when they seek economic development to enhance regime legitimacy (Bailes 1978; Bialer 1980; Hough 1977; Ludz 1972; Mawdsley and White 2000; Zheng 1997). In Mao’s China, the division of labor between the government and CCP was first experimented in the early 1950s and 1960s. Under this arrangement, CCP leaders such as Mao Zedong, Chen Boda, and Lin Biao, who knew little about economic management, focused on policy-making and issues of political principle; whereas leading cadres such as Chen Yun and Bo Yibo, who commanded expertise in finance, industrial planning, and economic coordination because of on-job training, led institutions with specific functions in various socioeconomic agendas such as economic growth, foreign trade, and infrastructural development (Diao 1970; Dittmer 1990, pp. 428-30; Huang 2000, pp. 12-8; 211-59; Zheng 1997).
It is necessary to stress that delegation is not always a favored option in state socialism. Although the official separation of the party and government has existed from 1949, the CCP has been struggling for the actual implementation. In some periods (e.g., 1949-1957, 1962-1965, and 1978-present), separation of the CCP and government (dangzheng fengong) was greatly encouraged and required, while in some other periods (e.g., 1958-1961, 1966-1977), domination or unification (dangzheng heyi) was ruthlessly enforced. It appears that the division of labor in governance does not appeal to the CCP when economic development is not its priority. For example, during China’s Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976, power struggle between Mao and his opponents overrode the concerns for economic growth and interrupted the division of labor between the CCP and government. As a direct consequence, China’s economy was on the brink of collapse at the end of the Cultural Revolution, which taught Chinese leaders a valuable lesson. Economic development has become a top priority of the CCP. Function differentiation has since been improved and implemented with rigor in the reform era to promote economic growth and hence the legitimacy of the CCP leadership (Huang 2000; Zheng 1997).
The movement towards functional differentiation has led to a greater degree of functional differentiation in governance between the CCP hierarchy and government system in the reform era. At the sub-national level, for example, there are a provincial government and provincial CCP committee in each of the provinces in China with the former running administrative affairs and the latter providing guidance and policies. The provincial CCP leaders are number one bosses in their provinces. They however are less occupied than provincial government officials with the management of the economy and other administrative affairs. For example, a deputy provincial party secretary is less likely than a deputy provincial governor to get himself/herself involved in preparing annual budgets or entertaining potential foreign investors. The division of labor is also evident at the highest level of power: the central government takes care of national economic activities and administrative affairs, whereas the CCP central organizations focus on policy guidance, supervision, personnel management, propaganda, and the like (Zhou 1995, p. 443; also Lieberthal and Lampton 1992; Lieberthal and Oksenberg 1988; Shirk 1992; Zheng 1997).
Functional differentiation has an important effect on leadership selection in the reform era. It calls for the need to recruit officials with expertise since they are essential for effective administration and economic growth. It however does not entail the removal of political loyalty as an important criterion in leadership selection. The Chinese leadership has initiated and conditioned leadership transition and market reforms to rebuild its legitimacy and consolidate its dictatorship over society. The political system and the institutional framework (i.e., nomenklatura)[1] for leadership selection have remained unchanged, the practice that stresses political loyalty in leadership selection has not been and will not be abandoned. Politically reliable candidates will be selected into leadership positions to maintain the integrity and coherence of the PRC regime. Hence: