Mingxing Liu - Böcker

Why would a politically centralized state embark on the path of economic decentralization? This Element delves into the political origin of the puzzling economic decentralization in mainland China. The authors contend that the intra-elite conflicts between the authoritarian ruler and the ruling elites within the state prompted the ruler to pursue decentralization as a strategy to curb the influence wielded by the ruling elites. By examining the composition of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee, they find that the Cultural Revolution, fueled by elite conflicts, shifted the elite selectorate's composition from favoring central agencies to favoring local interests. Subsequent low turnover reinforced this shift, aligning elite incentives with decentralization policies and committing the Chinese leadership to a decentralized path in the 1980s. Additionally, Taiwan's economic liberalization under the Kuomintang's authoritarian rule provides further evidence of the link between ruling party elite composition and economic policy orientation.

Why would a politically centralized state embark on the path of economic decentralization? This Element delves into the political origin of the puzzling economic decentralization in mainland China. The authors contend that the intra-elite conflicts between the authoritarian ruler and the ruling elites within the state prompted the ruler to pursue decentralization as a strategy to curb the influence wielded by the ruling elites. By examining the composition of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee, they find that the Cultural Revolution, fueled by elite conflicts, shifted the elite selectorate's composition from favoring central agencies to favoring local interests. Subsequent low turnover reinforced this shift, aligning elite incentives with decentralization policies and committing the Chinese leadership to a decentralized path in the 1980s. Additionally, Taiwan's economic liberalization under the Kuomintang's authoritarian rule provides further evidence of the link between ruling party elite composition and economic policy orientation.

Why do political elites in authoritarian regimes, even within the same country, engage in different levels of predatory behavior, whereby some foster vibrant capitalism and others suffocate the innovative private sector? This book proposes a theory of localized property-rights protection under authoritarianism. By combining in-depth fieldwork with archival research and quantitative data analysis, Qi Zhang and Mingxing Liu discuss the post-1949 conflicts between dominant and marginalized factions in the Chinese province of Zhejiang. These conflicts resulted in systemic vulnerabilities among the marginalized local cadres, thus motivating them to form alliances with their grassroots constituents. They therefore provided their constituents with quasi-public goods, such as property-rights protection, to increase their odds of political survival. Zhang and Liu argue that this framework can apply both to the Mao era and to the current reform era, and it also can be extended beyond China to a wider context.