2019 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report
Understanding the Model of Governance in China: Party-state's Integration with Business Entities
| Project/Area Number |
16K17060
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| Research Institution | International University of Japan |
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Principal Investigator |
Macikenaite Vida 国際大学, 国際関係学研究科, 講師(移行) (10773004)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2016-04-01 – 2020-03-31
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| Keywords | economic elite mobility / state capacity / authoritarian regime / co-optation |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
This year, a new full dataset of exectuitves from all Chinese companies was acquired, which allowed for an extensive analysis of the mobility of not only SOE leaders but Chinese economic elites more broadly. Analysis focused on CCP's state capacity building efforts, which revealed that SOE executives from traditional industries were appointed to state institutions in charge of SOE supervision and reform from around early 2000s. This observation is in line with the regime's effort to boost the quality of cadres, i.e. to recruit competent individuals with the exposure to global economy. Since the reform has weakend the party-state expertise in managerial affairs, bringing SOE executives into the state system offers a way to cover-up for such deficit. However, these findings then raise a question on the role of SOEs in China - are they the agents of a state or economic actors driven by financial interests.
Further, research focused on economic elite membership in the National People's Congress (NPC). More that 5% of the current NPC members are busines executives, the large majority of them being from manufacturing industries, although real estate development, financial companies were also represented. Considering the benefits that NPC membership may bring to those individuals, likely this is a part of regime' cooptation strategy. Economic elites are incorporated into the system in an attempt to avoid their alienation from the party state and in this way to stabilize the regime.
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