Regularization of cadres

1
Regularization of cadres

• Before the liberalization, revolutionaries or
  revolutionary cadres
• After the liberalization, the roles of cadres
  underwent fundamental changes they gradually
  became bureaucrats or administrators living and
  working in peaceful and more stable environment
  hence the regularization of cadres
• why? Regularization of political and
  administrative life, and the needs to cope with
  the many complex tasks facing a big nation
  developing along the soviet model

2
Regularization of cadres

• Worked less in isolated units and more in
  interdependent hierarchies
• spend less time with the masses and more with
  fellow officials
• from revolutionaries that sought to provoke
  disorder to administrators preferring stability
  and order
• not just revolutionary enthusiasm, but literacy
  and administrative skills

3
Regularization of cadres

• Developing more standardized pattern for career
  development and procedures governing hiring and
  promotion
• substituting the supply system with a
  standardized salary system
• more objective and standardized definition of
  criteria virtue is measured as the length of
  time spent in the communist movement
• even the term cadres is defined not by
  revolutionary enthusiasm, but by a simple
  bureaucratic distinction whether or not one is
  employed by the state and whether or not one is
  above a certain rank

4
Why is this issue interesting?

• Mao and the repeated attempt to hold back the
  fading of revolutionary enthusiasm
• Prediction of Max Weber and other sociologists
  there are functional needs in modern societies
  that call for the development of bureaucratic
  structures and procedures
• the tension between revolutionary enthusiasm and
  regularization
• provide a background against which to understand
  current transformation of cadres in China

5
Mao and Weber

• In a very fundamental sense, what has happened to
  the organization of cadres since 1949 corresponds
  more closely to the visions of Max Weber than to
  the visions of Chairman Mao. The bureaucratic
  organization is far more politicized and
  office-holders far less neutral than Weber would
  have envisaged, but the large organizational
  staff, with specialized responsibilities, a
  detailed salary system and standardized career
  lines, certainly does not correspond to the
  original Maoist vision.

6
Mao and Weber

• But the Maoist vision has not died. The
  revolutionary vision is now a thorn and a gadfly
  too the bureaucratic-administrator, driving him
  on to greater commitments and greater exertion
  while disrupting office routines and the daily
  flow of business.
• The result is an office setting where efficiency
  is sacrificed for enthusiasm and system operation
  gives way to mobilization
• the Great Cultural Revolution as an attempt to
  hold back the bureaucratic development and the
  regularization of cadres

7
Cadre in the reform era

• Problems at the beginning of the reform era
• overstaffed
• old and uneducated cadres
• no cadre retirement system
• Creation of a retirement system
• new cadre criteria emphasis on younger, better
  educated and more profesionalized
• strict and rigid implementation of the new cadre
  criteria the emphasis on both age and education
  provides objective criteria

8
New elite comes into the scene

• Between 1982 and 1988 more than 550,000
  better-educated cadres came to leadership
  positions above the county level, while close to
  3 million old cadres retired
• almost all senior cadres are promoted in recent
  years

9
Main characteristics of the new elite

• Reflect the new cadre criteria and other values
  and bureaucratic structures relevant to elite
  formation
• Better educated, and mainly educated in natural
  sciences and technology education attainment
  seems to be far more important in China than in
  other countries - for many positions
  post-graduate education is required
• native of the localities in which they hold
  leadership positions partially the impact of the
  reform of the nomenklatura system
• career patterns promoted in the reform era, have
  some administrative experiences in the same
  localities or organizations in which they hold
  leading positions (they are more likely to be
  promoted from within)

10
Main characteristics of the new elite

• Fragmented cadres and, except at the very high
  level, few cross system or cross department
  mobility of cadres
• unlike Japan, South Korea and France, in China
  the cadres are not drawn from a particular
  university or institution
• most cadres are likely to stay in the same
  department or system for the whole career

11
Consequences

• Reinforce the rise of localism native cadres are
  likely to be more concerned with local interests
  and are more likely to protect local interests
• Elitism and the rise of technocrats
• compared with other countries, cadres in China
  are more technocratic and are more likely to have
  education in engineering and science
• more elitist than in the past, but there is a
  question whether Chinas cadres are more elitist
  than officials in other countries
• are technocrats better administrators or better
  rulers?

12
Consequences

• Immobilism
• Losing central authority to alter the prevailing
  patterns of power and resource allocations
• losing ability to enforce compliance
• both a result of the rising power of technocrats
• To a certain extent, this is also a logical
  result of the fragmented bureaucratic structure,
  and the characteristics of cadres only reinforces
  this tendency
• reinforced by localism and elitism