Power Structure and Regime Resilience: Contentious Politics in China

Abstract

Authoritarian governments may face serious uncertainties when dealing with popular resistance because of the unpredictable consequences of making concessions or repressing opposition. However, a political system with multiple levels of authority can help reduce the uncertainties by granting conditional autonomy to lower-level authorities. Such a power structure prevents excessive repression and unconditional concessions when the priorities of different levels of authority do not match. Under this political arrangement, the central authority can avoid blame when local authorities use repression. The divided power also helps reduce the uncertainties faced by the central authority because it will then have to deal with only a very limited number of instances of resistance. Using the case of China, this article shows that divided state power has allowed the party-state to maintain social stability amid numerous instances of social unrest during the reform era.

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“…The Chinese claim that their system is in several aspects superior to democracy: It generates superior economic growth, in fact the fastest in history; it meritocratically selects better political leaders (Bell 2015), who are accountable for their performance to higher levels through yardstick competition (Gang 2007, Xu 2011; it chooses better policies by local experimentation (Wang 2009); it is responsive to local conditions by allowing expressions of decentralized protest (Cai 2008, Lorentzen 2013; and it maintains moral order, which has collapsed in the West, as well as "social harmony." Moreover, although widespread corruption and increasing inequality are selectively admitted, the Chinese leaders insist that their system is being continually perfected whereas democracies are institutionally stagnant.…”

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