Supervising Local Cadres in China: The Quest for Authoritarian Accountability

IF 4.1 2区社会学 Q1 POLITICAL SCIENCE

Politics & Society Pub Date : 2023-09-11 DOI:10.1177/00323292231196635

Meixi Zhuang

引用次数: 0

Abstract

This article examines the compatibility of authoritarianism and accountability through groundbreaking research on citizen supervision of local state agents, a novel form of accountability politics that has been underway in China for a decade. Based on an in-depth political ethnography of the Citizen Monitoring Organization in Wenzhou, this article examines how the authoritarian instrument that produces relations of domination can be turned into a bonanza for public accountability. The article demonstrates that local leaders may encourage citizens to help restrain the exercise of power in the lower state echelons when agent malfeasance is considered a threat to local leaders' career advancement. This opportunity structure leads to the mechanism of “state-backed supervision”: enlisted citizen participants draw on the delegated and entitled authority of the state to demand accountability from local state agents. Examining the logic, dynamics, limitations, and outcomes of state-backed supervision, this article identifies a novel pathway to accountability in authoritarianism.

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监督中国地方干部:对威权问责制的追求

本文通过对地方政府机构的公民监督的开创性研究来考察威权主义和问责制的兼容性，这是一种在中国已经进行了十年的新型问责制政治。本文以温州公民监督组织的深入政治人类学为基础，探讨了产生统治关系的专制工具如何转化为公共问责的财源。本文表明，当代理人的渎职行为被认为对地方领导人的职业发展构成威胁时，地方领导人可能会鼓励公民帮助限制国家下级梯队的权力行使。这种机会结构导致了“国家支持的监督”机制:被征募的公民参与者利用国家授予的和有资格的权力，要求地方政府机构承担责任。本文考察了国家支持的监督的逻辑、动态、局限性和结果，确定了威权主义问责制的新途径。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Politics & Society Multiple-

CiteScore

5.00

自引率

4.20%

发文量

期刊介绍： Politics & Society is a peer-reviewed journal. All submitted papers are read by a rotating editorial board member. If a paper is deemed potentially publishable, it is sent to another board member, who, if agreeing that it is potentially publishable, sends it to a third board member. If and only if all three agree, the paper is sent to the entire editorial board for consideration at board meetings. The editorial board meets three times a year, and the board members who are present (usually between 9 and 14) make decisions through a deliberative process that also considers written reports from absent members. Unlike many journals which rely on 1–3 individual blind referee reports and a single editor with final say, the peers who decide whether to accept submitted work are thus the full editorial board of the journal, comprised of scholars from various disciplines, who discuss papers openly, with author names known, at meetings. Editors are required to disclose potential conflicts of interest when evaluating manuscripts and to recuse themselves from voting if such a potential exists.