Top-Down Accountability, Social Unrest, and Anticorruption in China

Abstract

What motivates front-line officials to curtail corruption? We contend that performance management can reinforce top-down accountability in authoritarian governments and help contain corruption at the local level. Drawing on a nationally representative panel data of approximately 120 villages in China, we find that when anticorruption is prescribed as a salient policy goal in the township-to-village performance evaluation, village officials are incentivized to curb corruption. We further present evidence that the mandate for maintaining social stability propels township-level governments to prioritize the anticorruption work in the performance evaluation of village officials given that corruption constitutes a crucial trigger for social unrest. Our study sheds light on the understanding of performance management, bureaucratic accountability, and anticorruption policies in authoritarian countries.