Remaking the Communist Party-State: The Cadre Responsibility System at the Local Level in China

Abstract

The Chinese party-state is restructuring its governing institutions, and is reinventing itself in the process. China is not only remaking its public management, but it is also restructuring its party-state organisation. This project applies a local perspective to study state transformation and the focus is on the introduction of the cadre responsibility system at the local level. It is suggested that part of the radical reform proposals of the 1980s have in fact been carried out at the local level. Findings show that the CCP is ridding itself of some functions to enable it to become more efficient in carrying out others. Neither decentralisation nor re-centralisation is a linear process.