Title
Weapons of the powerful : authoritarian elite competition and politicized anticorruption in China
Document Type
Journal article
Source Publication
Comparative Political Studies
Publication Date
8-2017
Volume
50
Issue
9
First Page
1186
Last Page
1220
Publisher
Sage Publications, Inc.
Keywords
China, anticorruption, authoritarian politics, elite competition, patronage
Abstract
What motivates authoritarian regimes to crack down on corruption? We argue that just as partisan competition in democracies tends to politicize corruption, authoritarian leaders may exploit anticorruption campaigns to target rivals’ power networks during internal power struggles for consolidating their power base. We apply this theoretical framework to provincial leadership turnover in China and test it using an anticorruption data set. We find that intraelite power competition, captured by the informal power configuration of government incumbents and their predecessors, can increase investigations of corrupt senior officials by up to 20%. The intensity of anticorruption propaganda exhibits a similar pattern. The findings indicate that informal politics can propel strong anticorruption drives in countries without democratically accountable institutions, although these drives tend to be selective, arbitrary, and factionally biased.
DOI
10.1177/0010414016672234
Print ISSN
00104140
E-ISSN
15523829
Funding Information
This project is sponsored by HKGRF (Project No. 17411814). {17411814}
Publisher Statement
Copyright © The Author(s) 2016
Access to external full text or publisher's version may require subscription.
Full-text Version
Publisher’s Version
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Zhu, J., & Zhang, D. (2017). Weapons of the powerful: Authoritarian elite competition and politicized anticorruption in China. Comparative Political Studies, 50(9), 1186-1220. doi: 10.1177/0010414016672234
