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Corruption, Anticorruption, and the Transformation of Political Culture in Contemporary China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2016

Macabe Keliher  and
Hsinchao Wu
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Abstract

Since its inception three years ago, Xi Jinping's anticorruption campaign has targeted some of China's biggest political and military figures and implicated tens of thousands of cadres. This article argues that the current campaign can be distinguished from the many others over the past thirty years not on account of its extensiveness, but rather in its systematic coupling with two other key moves: administrative reform and disciplinary regulation. Together, these three initiatives aim not only to clean up the malfeasance, graft, and bribery pervasive in Chinese political life today, but also to change the political culture. We demonstrate that the current leadership is forcing a shift in political norms and behaviors, and changing the shared assumptions and practices that inform the political dealings of the society, from the approval of permits to the promotion of judges.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 75 , Issue 1 , February 2016 , pp. 5 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2016 

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References

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12 Ibid.

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19 It should be noted that retracting local control has been attempted in other areas, such as financial reform, and has only met with modest success. It remains to be seen if this initiative will give investigators greater agency in practice, as the government hopes.

20 For more on these reforms, see Fu Hualing, “Wielding the Sword,” op. cit. note 17.

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32 “Hunan chengzhi ‘weiguan buwei’ dao bi zuofeng zhuanbian” [Change of practices caused by punishments for inaction in Hunan], Zhongguo xinwen, February 27, 2015, http://www.chinanews.com/df/2015/02-27/7086113.shtml (accessed February 27, 2015).

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37 “Tiaozhengle neishe jigou jiu shi wancheng ‘sanzhuan’ le ma” [Will an inner-organizational adjustment achieve the “three shifts”?], Renmin ribao, August 17, 2015, http://fanfu.people.com.cn/n/2015/0817/c64371-27473729.html (accessed September 25, 2015).

38 “Jiemi ‘sanji ban’: Gei ‘yibashou’ men dingzhi de fanfu ke” [Declassifying the educational workshops for local leaders: Teaching lessons in anticorruption], Qingfeng zhuying wang, August 26, 2015, http://www.gdzjjw.cn/plus/view.php?aid=1078 (accessed August 29, 2015); “Biru xian juxing ge xiangzhen jijian ganbu peixunban kaiban yishi” [Inauguration of the training workshop at Biru County for local disciplinary cadres], Wei Biru, August 24, 2015, http://www.xzbr.gov.cn/cgyw_4327/201508/t20150824_767083.html (accessed August 29, 2015).

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