Does Performance Competition Impact China's Leadership Behaviour? Re-examining the Promotion Tournament Hypothesis

Abstract

How can China develop so quickly and yet maintain stability? Most scholars pinpoint the efforts of China's local government leaders as a primary factor. Regarding what motivates these leaders, however, scholars display wide disagreement. The widely accepted “promotion tournament” hypothesis stresses competition among local leaders as the driving force, but empirical test results vary considerably and create controversy. We argue that tests of promotion competition should target leadership behaviour rather than institutional inducements; the latter are, at best, a necessary condition of the former. Informed by extensive fieldwork, this study proposes an alternative and more direct approach to verifying the promotion tournament hypothesis by examining the impacts of promotion competition on leaders’ performance efforts. Our test results show, however, that competition for promotion has no significant impact on local leaders’ behaviour, thereby indicating that the promotion tournament hypothesis cannot be the primary explanation for China's economic achievements and regime resilience. In so doing, our study illuminates the oversimplified assumptions behind a prevailing proposition in Chinese politics and offers empirically informed insights into the tensions between political institutions and leadership behaviour.

An Evolutionary Game Analysis of Heterogeneous Local Government Land Supply Behavior and Industrial Transfer Competition

“…The tournament competition under central political centralization makes local governments highly attentive to the behavior of competitors, and many actions are strategic, complex, and variable [24][25][26][27][28]. Since Olson (1973) pioneeringly pointed out the importance of differences among members in influencing collective action, heterogeneity has been introduced into numerous research fields [29].…”

Official Turnovers and Economic Growth: Evidence from China

“…Chen & Wang, 2022). Empirical evidence shows that the conditions for the promotion tournaments do not hold and that promotion incentives are, at best, one of the necessary conditions for the efforts of Chinese o cials and do not have a decisive impact (Pang et al, 2023). These studies have questioned the theory of promotion tournament from different perspectives, thereby enhancing the theory and our understanding of its applicability.…”

“…However, the theory of promotion tournaments has limitations. In reality, the precondition that o cials promotion stimulates economic growth does not hold (Pang et al, 2023). Rather, the promotion of o cials does not depend solely on economic performance (J. Chen et al, 2017; Chen & Wang, 2022).…”

Environmental target constraints and enterprise export competitiveness—Exploring the sustainable development of China's external trade

“…China's export growth can be attributed to the efforts of its local government leaders (Kumakura, 2007). In the country's decentralized system, local governments are motivated to promote export‐oriented industries in order to expand exports and improve their political performance (Pang et al, 2023). To attract foreign capital, they often prioritize economic growth over environmental concerns by relaxing regulations (Wang et al, 2021).…”