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ID: 181926

Missionaries of the Party: Work-team Participation and Intellectual Incorporation / Perry, Elizabeth J

Perry, Elizabeth J	Journal Article
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Summary/Abstract

Among the most distinctive features of Chinese Communist Party governance is the frequent deployment of work teams to conduct campaigns, implement policies and troubleshoot crises. An underappreciated aspect of work-team operations from Land Reform to the present has been the active participation of educated intellectuals as key intermediaries between central leaders and grassroots society. Serving in effect as “missionaries” of the Party, intellectual work-team members function as trained “ritual specialists” in carrying out their appointed mission. Although work teams are often not the most efficient or effective means of governance, the impact of work-team experience on team members themselves is consequential. Employing quasi-religious practices designed to promote the ideological incorporation of intellectuals, work teams have helped to forestall the emergence in China of an alienated class of dissidents like those whose criticisms eroded the legitimacy of Communist regimes elsewhere in the world.

Key Words

China ; Land Reform ; Intellectuals ; Work Teams ; Campaign-Style Governance ; Ritual Specialists

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ID: 187448

Strengthening the State through Crisis Management: Battles against the SARS and COVID-19 Pandemics in China / Jiang, Guangming ; Ong, Lynette

Ong, Lynette	Journal Article
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Summary/Abstract

How do state leaders use crisis management to strengthen state infrastructural power? What explains the strategic choices of a state’s selective institutionalization of crisis measures? Crises offer unique opportunities for state-building, yet the role of crisis management in consolidating state power is underexamined. This paper explores these important issues by examining how the Chinese government has deployed wartime-like measures in battling the spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and COVID-19. While authorities in China have adopted unconventional measures in managing the crises, they have selectively normalized ad hoc practices and institutionalized certain measures to strengthen state infrastructural power once they have ended or been temporarily contained. Drawing on the frameworks of rational choice and historical institutionalism, our analysis suggests that the central government normalizes or institutionalizes measures that help to consolidate its control of the bureaucracy and enhance regime legitimacy.

Key Words

SARS ; Crisis Management ; COVID-19 ; Campaign-Style Governance ; State Infrastructural Power

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