Varieties of Patronage in a Single Party State: Ministers in China

Abstract

Extant literature on Chinese elite politics tend to argue that Chinese officials work under a political system very different from a western-Weberian bureaucracy. Factional patron-client relationship is considered a dominant factor affecting political appointment of high-level officials. However, prior findings have been mainly based on governors of provincial or prefectural jurisdictions or central committee members. State Council ministers and vice-ministers are largely missing in the previous analysis. Our research is among the first to focus on the State Council ministers and vice-ministers under the administration of President Xi Jinping. This high-level bureaucrat group arguably is most comparable to the political appointees in Weberian bureaucracies. We systematically analyze their types of patronage along the policy-politics divide and loyalty basis. We also bring in the dimension of expertise to further identify the extent of professionalization of Chinese ministers. We find a variety of patronage existing among Chinese ministers. Political loyalty is only one kind of the patronage affecting personnel configurations of the State Council. Professional experience, such as policy- and knowledge-expertise, is also considered in different circumstances across ministries in China.