Personnel Control and Local Officials’ Attention to Economic Development: Evidence from China

• Published date: 01 February 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00953997231223518
• Author: Yang Yan,Tom Christensen,Zhusong Yang
• Date: 01 February 2024

https://doi.org/10.1177/00953997231223518

Administration & Society

2024, Vol. 56(2) 145 –171

© The Author(s) 2024

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/00953997231223518

journals.sagepub.com/home/aas

Article

Personnel Control

and Local Officials’

Attention to Economic

Development: Evidence

from China

Yang Yan1, Tom Christensen1,2 ,

and Zhusong Yang1

Abstract

Compared to democracies, our understanding of policy attention in

authoritarian governments remains limited. Using data from 612 Chinese

municipal party secretaries’ official activities, we investigate the structural

factors within the authoritarian bureaucratic system influencing new

officials’ attention for economic issues. The findings reveal that younger

officials and those transferred from other regions exhibit a clear preference

for economic issues. Moreover, higher economic growth expectations from

superior governments are linked to increased attention to urban economic

affairs by officials. This study enriches the literature on comparative agenda

research by discussing the relationship between policy attention allocation

and authoritarian cadre management.

Keywords

policy attention, authoritarian government, cadre management, local

officials, China

1Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

2University of Oslo, Norway

Corresponding Author:

Zhusong Yang, School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University, No. 30

Shuangqing Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 100084, China.

Email: zhusong@tsinghua.edu.cn

1223518AAS0010.1177/00953997231223518Administration & SocietyYan et al.

research-article2024

146Administration & Society 56(2)

According to Jones and Baumgartner’s (2005) research, the daily work of

governments and bureaucrats involves striking a balance between “what to

focus on” and “what not to focus on.” Therefore, policy attention has become

a crucial topic in the field of public policy (Baumgartner et al., 2006;

Zahariadis, 2016). However, compared to democratic countries, our under-

standing of issue attention in authoritarian government remains limited (Or,

2019; Pepinsky, 2014). This is particularly true for one-party states like

China, where the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) holds sole authority in

political operations and public administration, leading to a blurred boundary

between politics and administration (Guo, 2019). As a result, the traditional

“politics-administration dichotomy” may not apply to comprehending policy

attention patterns in contemporary China. Instead, it is crucial to focus on the

attention dynamics of the CCP, since all significant and specialized public

affairs are under the purview of the party, while administrative and legislative

bodies are responsible for implementing the CCP’s will. Unfortunately, sys-

tematic research on the issue attention of the CCP and its political elites is

scarce.

Additionally, since the late 1970s, the CCP shifted its core focus from

politics and class struggle to economic development, leading China to achieve

rapid economic growth over the past four decades. However, the highly cen-

tralized political system persisted even during the economic reforms, and the

cadre system, a top-down personnel management mechanism, played a piv-

otal role in controlling the flow of officials (Zhao, 2010). Moreover, the sys-

ten effectively shaped the behavior of local governments, pushing them to

prioritize economic development (Zhong, 2015). Nonetheless, there remains

a lack of sufficient empirical research from a comparative agenda analysis

perspective to better understand how cadre management influences local

officials’ preferences regarding economic issues. Traditional theoretical

frameworks based on elections or party competition in democratic countries

are inadequate to provide clear answers.

Given these gaps, this study addresses two main questions. Firstly, it seeks

to understand the policy attention structure of Chinese local officials. Since

the initiation of economic reforms, have local officials developed a discern-

ible preference for economic issues? Moreover, in the one-party system, how

does the attention allocation of local officials on economic development

relate to the CCP’s control over political elites?

To address these questions, we investigate the policy agendas of 612

Municipal Party Secretaries (MPSs) during the early period of their ten-

ure. MPSs are the highest-ranking leaders in China’s municipalities, serv-

ing as primary agents of the CCP in cities and wielding significant

political influence and administrative authority (Yan & Yuan, 2020).