Institutionalization of Chinese politics since Deng Xiaoping:
The Chinese state and its relationship to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been by far the most significant factor in determining the level of institutionalization of Chinese politics. Chinese politics was highly shaped during the revolutionary and Maoist periods by the power of the CCP. The CCP’s role in the revolution and its creation of a particular state form highly influenced the state form. The Chinese state under Mao was revolutionary inasmuch as it was primarily focused on class struggle as its primary role. This changed after Mao’s death and the rise of Deng Xiaoping and his policies of economic modernization and political reform. The period since Deng’s takeover and his reformist drive meant that the Chinese state became more formal and institutionalized. Institutionalization in this sense is about the formalization of state power and its conflict with the CCP in power. The strengthening of state institutions and therefore governance has been a hallmark of Chinese politics since the 1980s, and this is what has for the most part been a trend. To study institutionalization in Chinese politics is to study its formalization and its changes for the past few decades. This includes the increasing power of the National People's Congress its oversight role and the changing function of the CCP within the Chinese state.
The changing nature of Chinese politics and the role of the state and the party within it substantially changed with Mao’s death and the coming of the reformist wing of the party in the shape of Deng Xiaoping. Starting in 1978 the party’s “leadership had pursued not only economic reform, but also political reform to overcome the chaos caused by ten years of the Cultural Revolution and to restore political stability. (Lee, 2010, p.560) One way in which Deng and the reforms intended to attack the problem of lack of organization and the informality of Chinese politics by giving more power to the National People’s Congress or NPC. The enlarged role of the NPC was just part of a larger drive by Deng and the new party leadership in restoring it, “then rehabilitating the authority of the central government, and then restoring state organizations and their normal operations, all of which were reflected in the new Constitution of 1982.” (Lee, 2010, p,562) This meant that the party was moving away from Mao’s vision and the chaos it created towards a more formal and organized institutional form. This process has been highly influential and has in large part determined the changing form of governance into a more institutional and formal system. This was according to Lee was a purposeful move by the CCP to create “political stability as a prerequisite for economic growth, adopting the stance that, without political stability, no economic development would be plausible.” (2010, p.569) These changes have had the largest impact on the Chinese state and its increasing stability and institutionalization since the 1980s. The primary conflict between reform efforts and the process of greater institutionalization since Deng took over control of the CCP has been the heavy lifting to change the way in which the state functions. The role of the CCP in Chinese politics can’t be underestimated because of its legacy as a Leninist-style vanguard party which aims to monopolize power. (Belcher, 1997, p.112). The structure of the Chinese state makes it hard to formally organize, because of the different levels of government and jurisdictions have differing levels of institutional control. A good example of this is the distinction between centralized urban centers of power and far more autonomous rural counties. There are considerable challenges for centralization and the institutionalization of the Chinese state. Belcher cites five general features of the Chinese state. These include its organization as a crisscrossing series of relationship between the state and party in a horizontal and vertical nature. The integral nature of the CCP in the functioning of the state. The weakness of the legislative branch in the National People’s Congress. Furthermore, Belcher remarks that the Chinese are even weaker in providing oversight of party and state institutions. Altogether this means, that the CCP remains the most important political organ in China and it has a monopoly on its institutions. (Belcher, 1997, pp.115) The Dengist program has forced the CCP to be “more professional and technically sophisticated,” which has led to greater stability within the institutions. (Belcher, 1997, p.124) This tension between the state and the party played out in a very interesting manner after Deng’s reforms in a long drawn out debate between loyalty to the party and technical expertise. A very important aspect of the debate between the CCP and its role within the Chinese state was articulated in a “Red v Expert debate.” (Dickson, 2003, p.31) Bruce Dickson explains that this particular impulse was driven by changes within the CCP and its priorities. In times where the party was more radical and therefore more active it would drop recruitment standards and its ranks would swell. Conversely, during “periods of recovery, the party typically froze new recruitment and weeded out the unqualified members or gave them necessary training. (Dickson, 2003, p.31) This reflected larger shifts within party dynamics and its different goals at different times as referenced above. The CCP’s ranks swelled during the Cultural Revolution and it changed towards a more efficient party with the coming of Deng’s modernization and reformist impulse. (Dickson, 2003, p.37) This change within the party itself proved to be a harbinger of change for the state and the focus on institutionalization. Deng’s reforms profoundly changed the face of Chinese politics and led it on a path towards greater stability and organized, institutional form of government. The infusion of technocrats brought on by the Dengist reforms was still not enough to deal with some of the most acute problems in Chinese administration which would take fine tuning for the next few decades. Reform efforts aimed at rationalizing and strengthening the functioning of China’s bureaucracy have been an ongoing project by the state. These reforms were meant to do “real progress toward making the Chinese state into a regulatory state” and it aimed to do this by “transforming government functions and enhancing administrative efficiency.” (Yeo, 2009, p.730) Even through persistent reform efforts the Chinese bureaucracy remained inefficient and riddled by overlapping responsibility. This was a hindrance to the efficient functioning of an economic governance. The state took care of this problem in 2008 through consolidating state functions in two ways. The first by strengthening “ macroeconomic regulation of key areas” while promoting scientific and industrial development. Second it wanted to improve public administration to help strengthen the social security system, (Yeo, 2009, p.731) This reform was driven by three main institutional changes. These changes include the creation of the National Development and Reform Commission which “reduces interventions in economic operations and instead will concentrate on ‘improving the management of planning and industrial policies, as well as coordinating the overall economic restructuring.’” (Yeo, 2009, p.731) Second, the Ministry of Finance will reform the tax and budget system, Finally, the People's Bank of China will tighten monetary policy in order to “improve the foreign exchange rate regime and strengthen the coordination with financial market regulators in order to prevent financial risks and ensure financial security.” (Yeo, 2009, p.731) Taken altogether these reforms proved to be a massive change in the governance of the Chinese state and a large increase in its institutionalization and formalization at the highest levels. This larger trend that started with the rise of the reformists to power after Mao’s death could be said to have concluded with the formalization of the 2008 “super-ministry” reforms. These institutions are functionally key to the state and they need to work outside of the party structure. These reforms show how the central state can be reformed, but it does not necessarily extend to the provinces and especially its most rural jurisdictions.Nowhere in the functioning of the Chinese state and politics is the gulf between state and party authority more obvious than in the countryside. This phenomenon, which came in the wake of the reforms of the late 1970s brought on decentralization which “has heralded a fundamental shift in the way China is governed. Local governments were made directly responsible for governing the local economy, delivering public services and for raising revenues.” (Hillman, 2010, p.1) This decentralization has impacted different parts of China differently and has increased factionalism. Hillman explains factionalism as the “the competition between factions for scarce resources or power.” (Hillman, 2010, p.5) This effectively meant that the scarcity of resources and the relative autonomy of rural elites made its so they could function outside the scope of the state and create parallel institutions in the rural counties., This a strict deviation from the intended purpose of Deng’s reforms and something which has calcified in China despite the express purpose of state reforms. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the relationship between the state and the population in the countryside. The relationship between the state apparatus and the communist party is very pronounced in the countryside where state power is more limited. This has the impact of giving CCP cadres in the villages. The cadres’ “control over peasants is not equal to party control unless they function as the mere components of the party-state machine without any independence or personal agendas. The regime’s governance in rural villages depends on two key links: the extent to which village cadres serve as loyal party-state tools and the extent to which they keep the villagers under effective control.” (Chen, 2007, p.147) But both of these relationships have gone “undergone significant change” in the era of rural reform especially since the 1990s. (Chen, 2007, p.147.) Institutionalization efforts in rural areas have been significantly hamstrung by these realities and the extent to which the state actually has power to exercise power in the rural regions. This conflict between state power and party control is always present in Chinese politics, but it is most pronounced in the rural areas where state power is less pronounced. The division between the state and the party in Chinese politics is one of the largest challenges for institutionalization and this is very clear to see both in the examples given above where the weakness of state institutions is shown in the periphery but this is also the case in the center of power in Beijing. The role of the National Party Congress should be one of oversight over the party instead it is highly limited. The institutional supervisory role of the NPC increased in the 1980s, but “it remained unlikely that the jurisdiction of the NPC would be extended to party committees or be allowed to greatly impinge on party autonomy.” (O’Brien, 190, p.167) Ultimately, the CCP is the most powerful institution in China and that is a hindrance to greater institutionalization, oversight and formalization of Chinese politics. The challenge of institutionalization in the Chinese context is in its sharpest relief in the conflict between the role of the party and state and how they function within Chinese politics. The history and legacy of the CCP as a Leninist style vanguard party has made it first of all the central institutions of power within Chinese politics. This was particularly pronounced during the revolutionary era and the succeeding period of class struggle characterized by the Maoist excesses of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. These historical events served to only strengthen and enlarge the party in opposition to the formalization of state power. In the period since Mao’s death and the reformist and modernization initiatives driven by Deng Xiaoping and his wing of the party swung the pendulum towards greater institutionalization and formalization of state functions and governance. Since 1978, the Chinese state has worked its hardest towards creating strong institutions with the goal of driving economic growth and creating political stability. Although its role is limited one institution which has played a major role in the greater institutionalization of the state is the larger role of the National People’s Congress in Chinese politics. Other reforms have also driven institutionalization like the 2008 “super-ministry” reforms. The goal of these reforms largely stated are to formalize governance and to ensure institutional stability. These policies have had differing levels of success, but the only thing which they have in common is that they work better in the center. These changes are less effective in China’s rural periphery primarily because of the importance of CCP cadres in administration and the limited reach of the state rural areas. These policies by in large have worked to formalize and institutionalize the Chinese state, but at its core the CCP will always remain the main center of power in China as was designed by Mao and the other revolutionary leadersThe institutionalization of the Chinese state is an ongoing process and one which is mainly hindered by the CCP and its impetus to retain power as the center of authority within the Chinese state and its legacy which was solidified during the revolution and the early period of class struggle under Mao.
References
Blecher, M., 2009. China against the tides: Restructuring through revolution, radicalism and reform. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Chen, A., 2007. The failure of organizational control: changing party power in the Chinese countryside. Politics & Society, 35(1), pp.145-179.
Dickson, B.J., 2003. Red capitalists in China: The party, private entrepreneurs, and prospects for political change. Cambridge University Press.
Hillman, B., 2010. “Factions and spoils: examining political behavior within the local state in China”. The China Journal, (64), pp.1-18.
Lee, H., 2010. “Political institutionalization as political development in China.” Journal of Contemporary China, 19(65), pp.559-571.
O'Brien, K.J., 2008. Reform without liberalization: China's National People's Congress and the politics of institutional change. Cambridge University Press.
Yeo, Y., 2009. “Remaking the Chinese State and the Nature of Economic Governance? The early appraisal of the 2008 ‘super-ministry’reform.” Journal of Contemporary China, 18(62), pp.729-743.
