Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-18T10:51:13.706Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“Stressing Out”: Cadre Calibration and Affective Proximity to the CCP in Reform-era China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2017

Andrew Mertha
Andrew Mertha*
Affiliation:
Department of government, Cornell University. Email: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Might authoritarian one-party systems experience something akin to party identification – or affective proximity to the Party – that waxes and wanes over time? Such cycles do not centre on elections but on the politics of succession, new policy initiatives and ad hoc housecleaning, and their focus would be officials within the system as opposed to the electorate outside it. I argue that a key mechanism animating such variation in party identification of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cadres lies within the recurring rectification efforts seeking to temper these individuals and make them more submissive to the larger political goals of the Party centre. Such priming is largely an in-house phenomenon, taking place increasingly deeper within the CCP apparatus. This process tends to involve an extensive arsenal of institutional mechanisms that constitute a particularly big stick and within which pressures to comply can be uncomfortable, even excruciating. Normative elements of these movements, such as the language and substantive written materials used during study, analysis and self-criticism are predominantly in the service of enhancing the sheer domineering quality of the Party vis-à-vis the individuals that make up its ranks. I explore this through an examination of the three stresses (san jiang) campaign of 1998–2002.

摘要

也许集权一党制体制下的党员经历一个类似于认同党 – 靠近党 - 党内消磨的逐渐转变过程, 这样的循环并非以选举为中心, 而是将重心放于政权交替? 新的政策措施的推举及党内内部清理。该等政策新举措及党内内部清理工作的重点是在体制内部官员而非体制外民众。本人的观点是中国共产党政府官员的党内认同机制的重点在于通过自我整改运动而诱导该等个人更加屈从于党中央更大的政治目标。 该种现象是一种内部现象, 并且不断深入中国共产党的各级组织。该党内认同的过程旨在利用广泛的系统化方式并与极其有效的 “大棒” 政策相结合, 该等措施对个人会造成不适甚至痛苦。 该等运动的规定动作 – 在自我学习、自我剖析、自我批评及自我整改中所使用的语言及实质性书面材料的主要目的是为了提高党及组成党内阶层的官员的绝对权威。本人通过对 1998 年至 2002 年期间开展的 “三讲” 活动的调查对此问题做出了研究。

Keywords

Chinese Communist Party (CCP)bureaucracycampaignsmovementsrectificationthought reform中国共产党官僚运动活动整风思想改造
Type
Articles
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 229 , March 2017 , pp. 64 - 85
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © SOAS University of London 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahlers, Anna L., and Schubert, Gunter. 2014. “Effective policy implementation in China's local state.” Modern China 41(4), 372–405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anonymous. 2001. “Zongqing chihe juzhang zuisi, wusha bei zhai zhuren hanyuan, deng, 5 ze” (Bureau chief indulging in excessive wining and dining dies of alcohol poisoning; section chief dismissed from office protests his innocence; etc. Five items). Lingdao kexue 1.Google Scholar
Apter, David E., and Saich, Tony. 1994. Revolutionary Discourse in Mao's Republic. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Baum, Richard, and Teiwes, Frederick C.. 1968. Ssu-Ch'ing: The Socialist Education Movement of 1962–1966. Berkeley, CA: University of California, Berkeley China Research Monographs 2.Google Scholar
Bennett, Gordon. 1976. Yundong: Mass Campaigns in Chinese Communist Leadership. Berkeley, CA: University of California, Berkeley China Research Monographs 12.Google Scholar
Brady, Anne-Marie. 2007. Marketing Dictatorship: Propaganda and Thought Work in Contemporary China. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Bueno de Mesquita, Alastair Smith, Siverson, Randolph M. and Morrow, James D.. 2003. The Logic of Political Survival. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
CCTV. 2013. “Hebei shengwei changwei miandui jingtou kaizhan piping yu ziwo piping” (Standing committee of Hebei province carries out criticisms and self-criticism in front of the cameras), http://news.ifeng.com/mainland/detail_2013_09/25/29878394_0.shtml. Accessed 7 February 2016.Google Scholar
Cohen, Danielle. 2016. “Rethinking the Birth Plan: Population Control, the Cairo Consensus, and the Reform of China's Planned Birth Policy.” PhD diss., Cornell University.Google Scholar
Deng, Kunwei. 2014. “Lancao xianwei changwei banzi ziwo piping xianzhang ziwo piping shi liulei” (County governor weeps during self-criticism session of the Lancao county Party standing committee), Beijing Youth Daily, http://news.enorth.com.cn/system/2014/05/10/011873442.shtml. Accessed 7 February 2016.Google Scholar
Deng, Yanhua, and O'Brien, Kevin. 2013. “‘Relational repression’ in China: using social ties to demobilize protesters.” The China Quarterly 215, 533–552.Google Scholar
Fewsmith, Joseph. 2005. “CCP launches campaign to maintain the advanced nature of Party members.” China Leadership Monitor 13, 2.Google Scholar
Gan, Nectar. 2015. “President Xi Jinping's corruption crackdown linked to officials’ suicides,” The South China Morning Post, 4 May, http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/1784492/president-xi-jinpings-corruption-crackdown-linked. Accessed 7 February 2016.Google Scholar
Gold, Thomas B. 1984. “‘Just in time!’ China battles spiritual pollution on the eve of 1984.” Asian Survey 24(9), 947–974.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guzzini, Stefano. 2012. The Return of Geopolitics in Europe? Social Mechanisms and Foreign Policy Identity Crises. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huang, Haifeng. 2015. “Propaganda as signaling.” The Journal of Comparative Politics 47(4), 419–438.Google Scholar
Hung, Chang-tai. 2011. Mao's New World: Political Culture in the Early People's Republic. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Koestler, Arthur. 2006. Darkness at Noon. New York: Scribner.Google Scholar
Laffey, Mark, and Weldes, Jutta. 1997. “Beyond belief: ideas and symbolic technologies in the study of international relations.” European Journal of International Relations 3(2), 193–237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lawrence, Susan V. 1999. “Stressful summer,” The Far Eastern Economic Review, 19 August, 16.Google Scholar
Lee, Charlotte P. 2015. Training the Party: Party Adaptation and Elite Training in Reform-era China. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lifton, Robert Jay. 1963. Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of “Brainwashing” in China. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Looney, Kristen. 2015. “China's campaign to build a new socialist countryside: village modernization, peasant councils, and the Ganzhou model of rural development.” The China Quarterly 224, 909–932.Google Scholar
Lynch, Daniel C. 1999. After the Propaganda State: Media, Politics, and “Thought Work” in Reformed China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Michelitch, Kristin, and Utych, Stephen. 2015. “Electoral cycle fluctuations in partisanship: global evidence from 86 countries.” Unpublished paper.Google Scholar
Naughton, Barry. 2015. “Reform retreat and renewal: how economic policy fits into the political system.” Issues & Studies 51(1), 23–54.Google Scholar
O'Brien, Kevin, and Deng, Yanhua. 2015. “Repression backfires: tactical radicalization and protest spectacle in rural China.” Journal of Contemporary China 24(93), 457–470.Google Scholar
O'Brien, Kevin, and Li, Lianjiang. 1999. “Campaign nostalgia in the Chinese countryside.” Asian Survey 39(3), 375–393.Google Scholar
Perry, Elizabeth. 2011. “From mass campaigns to managed campaigns: ‘constructing a new socialist countryside’.” In Heilmann, Sebastian and Perry, Elizabeth (eds.), Mao's Invisible Hand: The Political Foundations of Adaptive Governance in China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Contemporary China Series 17, 30–61.Google Scholar
Rosenthal, Elisabeth. 2000. “Princeton's language program in China is forced to change,” The New York Times, 8 May.Google Scholar
Smith, Graeme. 2013. “Measurement, promotion, and patterns of behavior in Chinese local government.” The Journal of Peasant Affairs 40(6), 1027–50.Google Scholar
Sorace, Christian. 2017. Shaken Authority: China's Communist Party and the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Tannenwald, Nina. 2005. “Ideas and explanation: advancing the theoretical agenda.” Journal of Cold War Studies 7(2), 13–42.Google Scholar
Teiwes, Frederick. 1990. Politics at Mao's Court: Gao Gang and Party Factionalism in the Early 1950s. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Teiwes, Frederick. 1994. Politics and Purges in China: Rectification and the Decline of Party Norms, 1950–65 (2nd ed.). Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Wallace, Jeremy. 2015. “The new normal: information and transformation of Chinese politics.” Unpublished paper.Google Scholar