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Empowering the Police: How the Chinese Communist Party Manages Its Coercive Leaders*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 August 2014

Yuhua Wang
Yuhua Wang*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania. Email: yuhuaw@sas.upenn.edu.
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Abstract

How does the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) secure the loyalty of its coercive leaders, and its public security chiefs in particular, in the face of numerous domestic protests every year? This article presents the first quantitative analysis of contemporary China's coercive leaders using an original data set of provincial public security chiefs and public security funding during the reform era. I demonstrate that the CCP, owing to its concern for regime stability, has empowered the public security chiefs by incorporating them into the leadership team. Empowered public security chiefs then have stronger bargaining power over budgetary issues. I rely on fieldwork, qualitative interviews and an analysis of Party documents to complement my statistical analysis. The findings of this analysis shed light on the understanding of regime durability, contentious politics and the bureaucracy in China.

摘要

面对每年无数的群体性事件, 中国共产党如何保证其 “维稳领袖”– 特别是公安领导 – 的忠诚度? 通过对改革开放时期中国省级公安局长和公安财政支出数据的分析, 本文是第一项对当代中国 “维稳领袖” 进行量化分析的研究。分析显示, 出于政权稳定的考虑, 中国共产党通过将公安领导提升进入领导班子而加强了公安领导的权力。进入领导班子的公安领导随而在预算分配上有了更大的议价权。此研究依靠作者的实地研究、访谈以及对政府文件的解读作为统计分析的补充。本文的发现为我们对政权稳 定、抗争政治以及中国的官僚体系的理解有借鉴作用。

Keywords

public security chiefsleadership teamcoercionpublic security fundingChinese Communist Partypork barrel公安局长领导班子维稳公安支出政治分肥
Type
Articles
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 219 , September 2014 , pp. 625 - 648
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2014 

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Footnotes

*

The author wants to thank Carl Minzner for helpful comments. Chenyang Lei and Yichao Cen have provided excellent research assistance. All errors remain my own.

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