Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T15:27:14.254Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Power Distribution and Distributive Politics in Local Developmental States: Evidence from China's Subnational Land Fiscalization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2022

Qi Zhang  and
Linke Hou Open the ORCID record for Linke Hou [Opens in a new window]
Qi Zhang
Affiliation:
China Center for Economic Studies, School of Economics, Fudan University, China
Linke Hou*
Affiliation:
Center for Economic Research, Shandong University, China
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: abram75@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Land fiscalization in China is a local development strategy intended to tilt the distribution of interests disproportionately toward local officials. We propose that the degree of power concentration among provincial Chinese leaders affects their need for support from lower-level bureaucrats. The more that power is dispersed among provincial leaders, the more they are incentivized to dispense benefits to local officials. To test this hypothesis, we used provincial-year panel data spanning 2003–2012 to examine how power concentration among provincial leaders affected land fiscalization within their jurisdictions. The empirical results robustly supported the hypothesis.

Keywords

land fiscalizationdistributive politicspower concentrationChina
Type
Article
Information
Journal of East Asian Studies , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , July 2022 , pp. 231 - 253
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the East Asia Institute

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ang, Yuen Yuen. 2016. “Co-optation & Clientelism: Nested Distributive Politics in China's Single-Party Dictatorship.” Studies in Comparative International Development 51 (3): 235–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Belova, Eugenia, and Lazarev, Valery. 2013. Funding Loyalty: The Economics of the Communist Party (New Haven: Yale University Press).Google Scholar
Bo, Zhiyue. 2007. “The PLA and the Provinces: Military Districts and Local Issues.” In Civil-Military Relations in Today's China: Swimming in a New Sea, edited by Finkelstein, David and Gunness, Kristen. New York: M.E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Cai, Hongbin, Henderson, Vernon, and Zhang, Qinghua. 2013. “China's Land Market Auctions: Evidence of Corruption?” The RAND Journal of Economics 44 (3): 662–80.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chen, Ting, and Kung, James. 2016. “Do Land Revenue Windfalls Create a Political Resource Curse? Evidence from China.” Journal of Development Economics 123 (4): 86–106.Google Scholar
Gallagher, Mary. 2007. Contagious Capitalism: Globalization and the Politics of Labor in China. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Grabowski, Richard. 1994. “The Successful Development State: Where Does it Come From.” World Development 22 (3): 413–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haggard, Stephan. 2018. Developmental States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Han, Haoying and Lai, Shih-Kung. 2012. “National Land Use Management in China: An Analytical Framework.” Journal of Urban Management 1 (1): 3–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
He, Shenjing, Liu, Yuting, Webster, Chris, and Wu, Fulong. 2009. “Property Rights Redistribution, Entitlement Failure and the Impoverishment of Landless Farmers in China.” Urban Studies 46 (9): 1925–49.Google Scholar
Hong, Ji Yeon, and Park, Sunkyoung. 2016. “Factories for Votes? How Authoritarian Leaders Gain Popular Support Using Targeted Industrial Policy.” British Journal of Political Science 46 (3): 501–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huff, W.G., Dewit, Gerda, and Oughton, Christine. 2001. “Credibility and Reputation Building in the Development State: a Model with East Asian Applications.” World Development 29 (4): 771–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jia, Ruixue, Kudamatsu, Masayuki, and Seim, David. 2015. “Political Selection in China: The Complementary Roles of Connections and Performance.” Journal of the European Economic Association 13 (4): 631–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jiang, Junyan, and Zhang, Muyang. 2020. “Friends with Benefits: Patronage Networks and Distributive Politics in China.” Journal of Public Economics 184: 104–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Chalmers. 1999. The Development State: Odyssey of a Concept. In The Development State, edited by Woo-Cumings, Meredith. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Kim, Byung-kook, and Vogel, Ezra F.. 2011. The Park Chung Hee Era: the Transformation of South Korea. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laakso, Markku, and Rein, Taagepera. 1979. “‘Effective’ Number of Parties: A Measure with Application to West Europe.” Comparative Political Studies 12 (1): 3–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, Ching Kwan, and Zhang, Yonghong. 2013. “The Power of Instability: Unraveling the Microfoundations of Bargained Authoritarianism in China.” American Journal of Sociology 118 (6): 1475–508.Google Scholar
Li, Daniel Z., and Zhang, Qi. 2018. “Policy Choice and Economic Growth under Factional Politics: Evidence from a Chinese Province.” China Economic Review 47: 12–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, Hongbin, and Zhou, Li-An. 2005. “Political Turnover and Economic Performance: The Incentive Role of Personnel Control in China.” Journal of Public Economics 89 (9): 1743–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, Lianjiang, and Liu, Mingxing. 2016. “Lishen gongmeng: zhonguo kangzhengzhengzhi zhong yizhi yinbi de shou” [Collusion between Officials and the Gentry: A Hidden Hand in Chinese Contentious Politics]. Ershiyi shiji [Twenty-First Century], 157: 57–67.Google Scholar
Lin, George, and Ho, Samuel P.S.. 2005. “The State, Land System, and Land Development Processes in Contemporary China.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 95 (2): 411–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lü, Xiaobo, and Landry, Pierre. 2014. “Show Me the Money: Inter-Jurisdiction Political Competition and Fiscal Extraction in China.” American Political Science Review 108 (3): 706–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lü, Xiaobo, and Liu, Mingxing. 2019. “The Logic of De Facto Power and Local Education Spending: Evidence from China.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 49 (2): 325–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Magaloni, Beatriz. 2006. Voting for Autocracy: Hegemonic Party Survival and Its Demise in Mexico. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meyer, David, Shih, Victor C, and Lee, Jonghyuk. 2016. “Factions of Different Stripes: Gauging the Recruitment Logics of Factions in the Reform Period.” Journal of East Asian Studies 16 (1): 43–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nathan, Andrew. 1973. “A Factionalism Model for CCP Politics.” The China Quarterly 53: 34–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nathan, Andrew. 2003. “Authoritarian Resilience.” Journal of Democracy 14 (1): 6–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Brien, Kevin J., and Li, Lianjiang. 1999. “Selective Policy Implementation in Rural China.” Comparative Politics 31 (2): 167–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oi, Jean. 1985. “Communism and Clientelism: Rural Politics in China.” World Politics 37 (2): 238–66.Google Scholar
Oi, Jean. 1992. “Fiscal Reform and the Economic Foundations of Local State Corporatism in China.” World politics, 45 (1): 99–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oi, Jean. 1999. Rural China Takes Off: Institutional Foundations of Economic Reform. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Pei, Minxin. 2016. China's Crony Capitalism: The Dynamics of Regime Decay (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Pepinsky, Thomas. 2009. Economic Crises and the Breakdown of Authoritarian Regimes: Indonesia and Malaysia in Comparative Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Persson, Petra, and Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina. 2016. “The Limits of Career Concerns in Federalism: Evidence From China.” Journal of the European Economic Association 14 (2): 338–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Qian, Tao, and Zhang, Qi. 2017. “Fiscal Decentralization and Pattern of County Public Expenditures in a Chinese Province,” Annals of Economics and Finance 18 (1): 199–223.Google Scholar
Robinson, James A., and Verdier, Thierry. 2013. “The Political Economy of Clientelism.” Scandinavian Journal of Economics 115 (2): 260–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shih, Victor. 2008. Faction and Finance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Shih, Victor, Shan, Wei, and Liu, Mingxing. 2010. “Gauging the Elite Political Equilibrium in the CCP: A Quantitative Approach Using Biographical Data.” The China Quarterly 201: 79–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shih, Victor, and Zhang, Qi. 2007. “Who Receives Subsidies? A Look at the County Level in Two Time Periods.” Paying for Progress in China: Public Finance, Human Welfare and Changing Patterns of Inequality, edited by Shue, Vivienne and Wong, Christine, 145–65. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Su, Fubin, and Tao, Ran. 2017. “The China Model Withering? Institutional Roots of China's Local Developmentalism.” Urban Studies 54 (1): 230–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsai, Kellee S. 2006. “Adaptive Informal Institutions and Endogenous Institutional Change in China.” World Politics 59 (1): 116–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vu, Tuong. 2010. Paths to Development in Asia: South Korea, Vietnam, China, and Indonesia. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whiting, Susan. 2001. Power and Wealth in Rural China: The Political Economy of Institutional Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bank, World, 2005. China: Land Policy Reform for Sustainable Economic and Social Development: An Integrated Framework for Action. Washington, DC. © World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/8254 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.Google Scholar
Xu, Chengang. 2011. “The Fundamental Institutions of China's Reforms and Development,” Journal of Economic Literature 49 (4): 1076–1151.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
You, Jong-Sung. 2015. Democracy, Inequality, and Corruption: Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines Compared. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhang, Jipeng, Fan, Jianyong, and Mo, Jiawei. 2017. “Government Intervention, Land Market, and Urban Development: Evidence from Chinese Cities,” Economic Inquiry 55 (1): 115–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhu, Jiangnan, and Zhang, Dong. 2017. “Does Corruption Hinder Private Businesses? Leadership Stability and Predictable Corruption in China,” Governance 30 (3): 343–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar