Institutional roots of China's political corruption in the reform era: An empirical study

The biggest puzzle about political corruption in contemporary China, lies with the fact that it has grown steadily throughout the reform period, despite continues efforts of the state to control it. This phenomenon raises two interrelated questions that must be answered, if we want to have a deeper understanding of the problem. First, why are public officials at all levels able to abuse their power in the first place? Second: why does the state fail to contain the spread of corruption? These two questions point to the institutional roots of China's political corruption in the reform era.; For the first question, the author argues that public officials need to have sufficient power, strong incentives for corruption, and ample corrupt opportunities to commit corrupt practices. In the reform era, although the state has loosened its control over the economy and the society, local government agencies have obtain a substantial amount of power that the central government has decentralized, and they themselves have also created more power in order to further improve their power status. These factors have greatly increased the scarce resources controlled by local officials, who can then trade these resources for private gains. Meanwhile, the reform process, and the economic and social changes it caused, has opened up various kinds of opportunities for officials to abuse their power safely and profitably. Under these circumstances, many officials would develop strong incentives to abuse their power.; The state could no prevent the situations from deteriorating, because it failed to identify and remove the major corrupt opportunities that have made possible various corrupt practices. To make things worse, certain institutional arrangements have almost crippled China's anti-corruption agencies, which are not able to resist the political disturbance from the local party and government leaders. This has lowered the risk that official face when they abuse their power.; Based on the above facts, the author then argues that in order to put corruption under control, China should launch a comprehensive anti-corruption campaign that aims to eradicate the institutional roots of corruption, not simply to remove those “bad apples”. It should also improve the power status of anti-corruption agencies at all levels, so that they can take a tough stance against local officials who dare to cross the line.