The Autocratic Logic of Meritocracy: Grassroots Political Co-optation in Contemporary China.
My book projecct addresses the puzzle why merit-based political recruitment arises or persists under authoritarianism, notwithstanding its adverse impact on elites' private interests. Focusing on the case of China and its National Civil Service Examination (NCSE), I develop and test a theoretical argument that centers on the role of upward mobility in authoritarian regime dynamics. I argue that authoritarian rulers may deliberately adopt and institutionalize meritocracy in elite recruitment to engineer limited but sustained upward mobility, which co-opts large numbers of non-elites with enhanced future prospect and helps stabilize the regime.
The NCSE, introduced in the 1990s and now mandatory for entry-level hiring in all levels of government, has transformed elite recruitment in China from a closed deliberation to an open, meritocratic process partaken by millions of college-educated citizens. As a vital political institution, however, NCSE remains woefully understudied and its political impact little understood. In my dissertation, I provide a comprehensive account of NCSE, describing not only its procedure and content, but also the evolution of its institutional features and the behavior of various actors engaged in the process.
Using a mixed-methods approach, I draw on qualitative, quantitative, and experimental evidence gathered during my year-long fieldwork to triangulate the dynamic between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership, local elites, and ordinary citizens in the context of NCSE. Employing a conjoint analysis and a list experiment, both conducted among local government officials, I show that NCSE, by imposing institutional constraints on local officials, effectively addresses the problem of divergent elite interests, reduces their patronage behavior, and promotes meritocracy. Then, applying a generalized difference-in-differences framework to a national representative survey, I find that being eligible for NCSE due to an arbitrary age cutoff significantly increases an individual’s perception of his upward mobility chances and dampens his demand for redistribution. Since conflicts between ruling elites and ordinary citizens often stem from tension over redistribution, NCSE thus reduces popular discontent and has a stabilizing effect on the regime. Together, these findings demonstrate how an authoritarian regime can harness upward mobility to its advantage with an institution of merit-based elite recruitment to strengthen its own survival.
The NCSE, introduced in the 1990s and now mandatory for entry-level hiring in all levels of government, has transformed elite recruitment in China from a closed deliberation to an open, meritocratic process partaken by millions of college-educated citizens. As a vital political institution, however, NCSE remains woefully understudied and its political impact little understood. In my dissertation, I provide a comprehensive account of NCSE, describing not only its procedure and content, but also the evolution of its institutional features and the behavior of various actors engaged in the process.
Using a mixed-methods approach, I draw on qualitative, quantitative, and experimental evidence gathered during my year-long fieldwork to triangulate the dynamic between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership, local elites, and ordinary citizens in the context of NCSE. Employing a conjoint analysis and a list experiment, both conducted among local government officials, I show that NCSE, by imposing institutional constraints on local officials, effectively addresses the problem of divergent elite interests, reduces their patronage behavior, and promotes meritocracy. Then, applying a generalized difference-in-differences framework to a national representative survey, I find that being eligible for NCSE due to an arbitrary age cutoff significantly increases an individual’s perception of his upward mobility chances and dampens his demand for redistribution. Since conflicts between ruling elites and ordinary citizens often stem from tension over redistribution, NCSE thus reduces popular discontent and has a stabilizing effect on the regime. Together, these findings demonstrate how an authoritarian regime can harness upward mobility to its advantage with an institution of merit-based elite recruitment to strengthen its own survival.