Between “Officials” and “Local Staff”: The Logic of the Empire and Personnel Management in the Chinese Bureaucracy
ZHOU Xueguang
2016, 36(1):
1-33.
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This article contrasts and examines two distinct modes of personnel management practices in the Chinese bureaucracy: (1) the historical pattern of the separation of officials and local staff (官吏分途); and (2) the contemporary pattern of stratified mobility (层级分流) among officials across levels of administrative jurisdictions. I argue that these two patterns, albeit distinct, have been rooted in the same institutional logic of governance in China, which are discussed and explicated in light of the “the Logic of the Chinese Empire” (Zhou 2014), especially in terms of the principal-agent problems associated with the scale of governance, the complementary role of formal and informal institutions, and the shift between symbolic vs. substantive authority in central-local government relationships.
This article began with the observation that, in Chinese history, there was a sharp separation of officials (“guan”) and local staff (“li”) in personnel flows in the government bureaucracy. That is, officials were directly allocated across administrative jurisdictions nationwide by the central government, whereas “local staff” was recruited locally and they stayed within the same administrative jurisdiction for life. This long-standing practice generated a huge divide between these two groups, with distinct career paths, incentives, and bases of interest articulation.
In contrast, a different pattern of personnel management practice—the pattern of stratified mobility—has emerged in the Chinese bureaucracy in the People's Republic. All cadres are treated as agents of the state. But, most officials tend to stay within their administrative jurisdictions for their entire careers and only a small group of top officials from selected offices and bureaus are able to move to the immediate higher-level administrative jurisdiction and, hence, enjoy a broader scope of mobility in the higher-level jurisdiction. One implication of this pattern is that dense social networks emerge horizontally within administrative jurisdictions and vertically across immediate administrative levels. Another implication is that officials at each level of the bureaucracy acquire the double identity as “officials” serving as the agents of the state and, at the same time, as the “local staff” who form alliance with local interests. These arguments are illustrated using the empirical data for personnel mobility in the Chinese bureaucracy in two prefectures in Jiangsu Province, from 1990 to 2008. This article concludes with a discussion on the implications of personnel management practices for China's governance. These practices and the resulting mobility patterns have provided stable institutional bases for central-local government relationships, and they have set limits to the downward reach of the state and the upward reach of local interests, and helped shape distinctive institutional practice in governing China.
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