Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Monday, November 26, 2012

Guaranteed mediocracy

For all the claims of promotion based on achievement, political scientists have found that who knows you is more important than accomplishments in China. Is China coming to resemble Mexico during the heyday of the PRI?

Family Ties and Hobnobbing Trump Merit at China Helm

To a degree, the new leaders of China named just days ago have backgrounds that are as uniform as the dark suits and red ties they wore at their coming-out ceremony.

Jiang

The seven men on the Politburo Standing Committee have forged close relations to previous party leaders, either through their families or institutional networks. They have exhibited little in the way of vision or initiative during their careers. And most have been allies or protégés of Jiang Zemin, the octogenarian former party chief.

The Communist Party and its acolytes like to brag that the party promotion system is a meritocracy, producing leaders better suited to run a country than those who emerge from the cacophony of elections and partisan bickering in full-blown democracies. But critics, including a number of party insiders, say that China’s secretive selection process, rooted in personal networks, has actually created a meritocracy of mediocrity.

Those who do less in the way of bold policy during their political rise — and expend their energies instead hobnobbing with senior officials over rice wine at banquets or wooing them with vanity-stroking projects — appear to have a greater chance of reaching the ranks of the top 400…

In the United States and other Western countries, some prominent political families have certainly wielded power through successive generations — think of the Kennedys or Bushes — but entrenched dynasties and the influence of elders are becoming particularly noteworthy in China. The increasing prevalence of the so-called princelings, those related by birth or marriage to earlier Communist Party luminaries, is one sure sign that family background plays a decisive role in ascending to power…

Just as important as family connections and demonstrated party loyalty is the ability to cultivate China’s top leaders. Five members of the standing committee are considered allies of Jiang Zemin, the party chief who stepped down in 2002, and the others have ties to his successor and rival, Hu Jintao…

[A] study by three scholars, published in February in American Political Science Review, found that patronage networks were more important than performance measures. Most surprising was that even meeting the target for economic growth paled in importance next to patron-client ties. The authors wrote that cadre management institutions “delivered promotions to followers of senior party leaders” and that there was “no relationship between growth performance and party ranking, and a strong relationship between factional ties and rank.”…