Communist party recruitment and social stratification in urban China, 2003

Abstract

How does the Communist Party in China recruit its members and reward them? This is the starting point of understanding the political order in China, and the foundation of Chinese Communist Party’s continuing ruling power. This paper incorporates the application process into the analysis of political recruitment and makes a distinction between self selection (application) effect with party membership effect. The two-step mutual selection process study suggests that father’s party membership and individuals’ education will largely improve the motivation of application; however, they are not the prerequisites for party membership as previous knowledge implied. The previously calculated economic return to party membership is largely composed by application effect. In terms of party membership effect, it is because of the advantages on occupational attainment and positional attainment that party members get higher income. Through allocating both administrative and professional elite positions according to party membership as well as educational credentials, the Communist Party successfully incorporates the highly educated people, which leads to broad undifferentiated elite which Konrad and Szelenyi suggested. This may partly explain how the communist regime sustains.

Date of Award	2010
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology