Central-local political relationships in post-Mao China: A study of recruitment policy implementation in Wuhan

One prominent aspect of post-Mao Chinese politics has been the changing relationship between central and local political authorities. Beijing has been experimenting with a series of adjustments and readjustments of its political relationships with the localities. Political scientists have yet to consider the consequences of these adjustments for central control, nor have they fully explored the extent of decentralization to local level authorities in relation to the Center's goals and intentions. The capability of the Center to control and the degree to which localities can deviate from central policies in this reforming socialist state awaits close examination.; The independent variable of this study is the structure of Chinese political system and central recruitment processes and methods of control. The dependent variable is implementation outcome of China's central recruitment policy. The study argues that implementation outcome depends on structures and processes of China's organizational control. Data from questionnaires distributed to 100 local cadres were supplemented by interviews with over 20 local and central bureaucrats and knowledgeable informants.; Substantively, this dissertation finds a high degree of implementation success in Wuhan which is attributed to effective central control over local political processes through a variety of formal and informal organizational control structures and processes. This dissertation introduces the concept of adaptive compliance to grapple with patron-clientelism as a determinant of slippage in the implementation of central cadre recruitment policy. The study finds that slippage is not necessarily a failure of "China's policy delivery system," but a phenomenon that is tolerated and manipulated by a central leadership that is cognizant of the endemic nature of patron-clientelism to its society and political system and the value that China's cadres attach to it. Theoretically, the dissertation challenges the belief that decentralization has meant a loss of central control and calls on future researchers to concentrate their efforts on the highly effective and creative methods that Beijing utilizes to ensure local compliance with central policy directives rather than on often insignificant local policy slippage.