Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T08:19:58.308Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Who Wants to Be a Communist? Career Incentives and Mobilized Loyalty in China*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2013

Bruce J. Dickson
Bruce J. Dickson*
Affiliation:
George Washington University. Email: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article analyses trends in the Chinese Communist Party's recruitment strategy and the composition of Party members. Based on original survey data, it analyses the motives for joining the CCP, the consequences on career mobility, and the effects of Party membership on political beliefs and behaviour in contemporary China. These data reveal three key findings. First, for those who aspire to positions in the Party/government bureaucracy or SOEs, Party membership is a necessary, if not sufficient, condition; for those in the non-state sector, it is youth and college education that are the keys to top jobs, and not Party membership. Second, CCP members are more likely to donate time, money, and even blood, for various causes, and to vote in local people's congress elections. This behaviour demonstrates mobilized loyalty: the CCP mobilizes its members to participate in these activities to demonstrate their loyalty to the regime and to serve as examples to the rest of the population. Third, Party members are not more likely to support and trust their state institutions: while they do have higher levels of support for the centre than the rest of population generally, Party membership does not produce increased support for the local state. Nor does economic development: all else being equal, support for central and local party-state institutions is lower in the most developed cities. These findings call into question the Party's recruitment and development policies, as well as the conventional wisdom on the link between economic development and popular support for the status quo.

Keywords

Chinese Communist PartyParty recruitmentcareer patternspolitical behaviourpolitical support
Type
Articles
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 217 , March 2014 , pp. 42 - 68
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2013 

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.)

Footnotes

*

Research for this paper was made possible with a grant from the National Science Foundation (SES-0921570). I would like to thank Jackson Woods for his invaluable research assistance, and the very helpful comments of two anonymous reviewers.

References

Appleton, Simon, Knight, John, Song, Lina and Xia, Qingjie. 2009. “The economics of Communist Party membership: the curious case of rising numbers and wage premium during China's transition.” Journal of Development Studies 45(2), 256–275.Google Scholar
Bian, Yanjie, Shu, Xialing and Logan, John R.. 2001. “Communist Party membership and regime dynamics in China.” Social Forces 79(3), 805–841.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bo, Zhiyue. 2010. China's Elite Politics: Governance and Democratization. Singapore: World Scientific.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brady, Anne-Marie. 2008. Marketing Dictatorship: Propaganda and Thought Work in Contemporary China. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Brødsgaard, Kjeld-Erik. 2006. “ Bianzhi and cadre management in China: the case of Yangpu.” In Brødsgaard, Kjeld-Erik and Zheng, Yongnian (eds.), The Chinese Communist Party in Reform. Abingdon: Routledge, 103–121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce, and Downs, George W.. 2005. “Development and democracy.” Foreign Affairs 84(5), 77–86.Google Scholar
Cai, Yongshun. 2010. Collective Resistance in China: Why Popular Protests Succeed or Fail. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Chen, Jie. 2004. Popular Political Support in Urban China. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Chen, Jie, and Zhong, Yang. 2002. “Why do people vote in semicompetitive elections in China?” Journal of Politics 64(1), 178–197.Google Scholar
Chen, Jie, and Dickson, Bruce J.. 2010. Allies of the State: China's Private Entrepreneurs and Democratic Change. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Zhili (ed.). 1991. Zhongguo gongchandang jianshe shi (A History of the CCP's Party Building). Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe.Google Scholar
Cho, Young Nam. 2008. Local People's Congresses in China: Development and Transition. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dickson, Bruce J. 2008. Wealth into Power: The Communist Party's Embrace of China's Private Sector. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dickson, Bruce J., and Rublee, Maria Rost. 2000. “Membership has its privileges: the socioeconomic characteristics of Communist Party members in urban China.” Comparative Political Studies 33(1), 87–112.Google Scholar
Economy, Elizabeth. 2005. The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China's Future. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Gilley, Bruce. 2008. “Legitimacy and institutional change: the case of China.” Comparative Political Studies 41(3), 259–284.Google Scholar
Guo, Gang. 2005. “Party recruitment of college students in China.” Journal of Contemporary China 14(43), 371–393.Google Scholar
Heimer, Maria. 2006. “The cadre responsibility system and the changing needs of the Party.” In Brødsgaard, Kjeld-Erik and Zheng, Yongnian (eds.), The Chinese Communist Party in Reform. Abingdon: Routledge, 122–138.Google Scholar
Huntington, Samuel P. 1970. “Social and institutional dynamics of one-party systems.” In Huntington, Samuel P. and Moore, Clement H. (eds.), Authoritarian Politics in Modern Society: The Dynamics of Established One-Party Systems. New York: Basic Books, 3–47.Google Scholar
King, Gary, Honaker, James, Joseph, Anne and Scheve, Kenneth. 2001. “Analyzing incomplete political science data: an alternative algorithm for multiple imputation.” American Political Science Review 95(1), 49–69.Google Scholar
Landry, Pierre F. 2008. Decentralized Authoritarianism in China: The Communist Party's Control of Local Elites in the Post-Mao Era. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Landry, Pierre, and Shen, Mingming. 2005. “Reaching migrants in survey research: the use of the global positioning system to reduce coverage bias in China.” Political Analysis 13(1), 1–22.Google Scholar
Lee, Hong Yung. 1990. From Revolutionary Cadres to Party Technocrats in Socialist China. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Li, Lianjiang. 2004. “Political trust in rural China.” Modern China 30(2), 228–258.Google Scholar
Li, Lianjiang, and O'Brien, Kevin J.. 2008. “Protest leadership in rural China.” The China Quarterly 193, 1–23.Google Scholar
Manion, Melanie. 1993. Retirement of Revolutionaries in China: Public Policies, Social Norms, Private Interests. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Manion, Melanie. 2000. “Chinese democratization in perspective: electorates and selectorates at the township level.” The China Quarterly 163, 764–782.Google Scholar
O'Brien, Kevin J. 1994. “Agents and remonstrators: role accumulation by Chinese people's congress deputies.” The China Quarterly 138, 359–380.Google Scholar
O'Brien, Kevin J., and Li, Lianjiang. 2006. Rightful Resistance in Rural China. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pei, Minxin. 2006. China's Trapped Transition: The Limits of Developmental Autocracy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Qi, Xingfa. 2008. “Nongmingong rudang yu nongmingong jiudi rudang – wenti, yiyi yu lujing” (Migrant worker Party recruitment and migrant worker “on the spot” Party recruitment – issues, significance and methods). Lilun yu gaige 2.Google Scholar
Rubin, Donald B. 1987. Multiple Imputation for Nonresponse in Surveys. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Sato, Hiroshi, and Eto, Keiya. 2008. “The changing structure of Communist Party membership in urban China, 1988–2002.” Journal of Contemporary China 17(57), 653–672.Google Scholar
Shambaugh, David. 2007. “China's propaganda system: institutions, processes, and efficacy.” The China Journal 57, 25–58.Google Scholar
Shambaugh, David. 2008. China's Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation. Berkeley and Washington, DC: University of California Press and Woodrow Wilson Center Press.Google Scholar
Shi, Tianjian. 1999. “Voting and nonvoting in China: voting behavior in plebiscitary and limited-choice elections.” Journal of Politics 61(4), 1115–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shi, Tianjian. 2008. “China: democratic values supporting an authoritarian system.” In Chu, Yun-han, Diamond, Larry, Nathan, Andrew J. and Shin, Doh Chull (eds.), How East Asians View Democracy. New York: Columbia University Press, 209–237.Google Scholar
Shih, Victor, Adolph, Christopher and Liu, Mingxing. 2012. “Getting ahead in the Communist Party: explaining the advancement of central committee members in China.” American Political Science Review 106(1), 166–187.Google Scholar
Tsai, Kellee S. 2007. Capitalism without Democracy: The Private Sector in Contemporary China. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Walder, Andrew G. 1995. “Career mobility and the Communist political order.” American Sociological Review 60(3), 309–328.Google Scholar
Walder, Andrew G. 2004. “The Party elite and China's trajectory of change.” China: An International Journal 2(2), 189–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, Qinfeng. 2011. “A speech at the news release conference of organizational construction of the CPC,” 24 June, www.china.org.cn/china/2011-06/24/content_22853196.htm. Accessed 15 July 2011.Google Scholar
Wang, Zhengxu. 2005. “Political trust in China: forms and causes.” In White, Lynn T. (ed.), Legitimacy: Ambiguities of Political Success or Failure in East and Southeast Asia. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co, 113–139.Google Scholar
Wright, Teresa. 2010. Accepting Authoritarianism: State-Society Relations in China's Reform Era. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Zhao, Shenghui (ed.). 1987. Zhongguo gongchandang zuzhi shi gangyao (History of the CCP's Organization). Anhui: Anhui renmin chubanshe.Google Scholar
Zheng, Yongnian. 2010. The Chinese Communist Party as Organizational Emperor. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Zhou, Xueguang. 2001. “Political dynamics and bureaucratic opportunities in the People's Republic of China.” Comparative Political Studies 34(9), 1036–62.Google Scholar