Formal Organizational Structure

1
Formal Organizational Structure

• Four administrative levels
• Central
• province
• county
• township
• Work unit a unique feature in China

2
Organizational set-up at the central level

• Party party congress, central committee,
  politburo, standing committee of the politburo,
  secretariat, central committee departments,
  military affairs commission
• line of authority among party organs
• Government national peoples congress, standing
  committee of the NPC, State Council, commissions
  and ministries
• line of authority among government organs, and
  changes of government structure over the years

3
Organizational Set-up at the provincial level

• Basically mirroring the set-up at the central
  level
• how important is the provincial level in Chinese
  political system?
• As a vast country, the implementation of policies
  requires active co-operation from provinces,
  particularly during an era of decline of
  ideological discipline
• rich provinces provide net revenue to the centre
• many provinces are the size of countries
• the overall direction of reform has been to
  enhance the power of the province and other
  territorial units

4
Counties and Cities

• County as a stable level of administration in
  Chinese history
• basically counties derive political power from
  the same factors that bolster the position of the
  provinces vis-à-vis the central level
• Cities, depending on their size and importance,
  are of different ranks

5
Administration at sub-county level

• Commune, production brigade, and production team
• township/town, village committee and economic
  association
• township as the lowest level of state
  administration

6
Work Units

• Work units as multipurpose bodies providing
  housing, recreational activities, schooling for
  children, health care etc.
• work units as the only source of supply of basic
  necessities during the Maoist era
• work unit as instrument of political control land
  mobilization
• low mobility among work units
• the impact of reform on the work unit system

7
The Matrix problem tiao/kuan issue

• The matrix problem for all large-scale
  organizations
• Why is this problem especially important in
  China?
• Unitary system
• central economic planning
• Tiao vertical bureaucracies on the basis of
  specialized functions
• Kuai horizontal coordinating bodies organized on
  the basis of territorial units

8
Tiao-kuai issue

• Tiao/kuai guanxi refers to the relationship
  between the vertical authority and horizontal
  authority and the tension and conflict arising
  from such relationship
• leadership relationship (lingdao guanxi) and
  professional relationship (yewu guanxi) the
  assignment of primary leadership

9
Tiao-kuai issue

• Tiao-kuai guanxi and fragmented authority the
  problem of having many bosses
• vetoing power of one of these bosses
• the tendency for the conflicts among bureaucratic
  units to be pushed up and overload of the central
  level
• tiao-kuai guanxi and bargaining

10
Techniques for overcoming fragmentation of
authority

• Ideology and its declining importance in the
  reform era
• bargaining among different bureaucratic actors to
  construct a consensus