Haokun Sun, Cornell University-Ph.D. Candidate

Yes, Standing Committee:  Election under Collective Leadership in CCP

Abstract: Chinese Communist Party (CCP) implemented the collective leadership decision mechanism in the post-Mao era. The mechanism encourages the CCP Politburo Standing Committee to rule by consensus to prevent authoritarianism. This project studies the election inside the Central Committee of the CCP in this era. To characterize the connection benefits in elections under collective leadership, I construct a social network through shared hometown, college alumni, and overlapped working experience within the Central Committee. I further separate the network into vertical and horizontal connections. I show that the vertical connection to the incumbent Standing Committee members increases a candidate's likelihood of promoting to Politburo and being assigned a prestigious position. The horizontal connection with the peer Central Committee members could harm the candidate's opportunity to promote to Politburo and their job assignments. The estimated majority rule suggests the Standing Committee member has quasi-veto rights when deciding the vice-provincial-ministerial above-level appointment. The results remain robust with various specification and estimation settings, including the Katz-Bonacich centrality measure.