Cadre Management in China

1
Cadre Management in China

• The concept of cadre, socialism, and one-party
  regime
• Three types of organizations in China
  administrative organs (xingzheng jiguan or
  jiguan), service organizations (shiye danwei),
  and enterprises (qiye)
• cadres and workers
• civilian and military cadres

2
Historical Context

• Institutional development in the 1950s
• Political campaigns, the Cultural revolution and
  the de-institutionalization of organizational
  work
• Cultural revolution, emphasis on political
  criteria at the expense of professional and
  technical criteria, political purges, and cadre
  attributes and cadre management

3
Cadre Transformation in the Reform Era

• Ganbu sihua (geminghua, nianqinghua, zhishi hua
  and zhuanyehua) revolutionary, younger, more
  educated and more professionally competent
• rehabilitation, institutionalization of a
  retirement system, and cadre transformation
  toward a strong emphasis on academic credentials

4
Framework of Cadre Management

• Party management of cadre
• no appointment, promotion, transfer or removal of
  leading cadres can be effected without the
  approval of party committees
• the most important party committees are the
  territorial-based committees
• organizational departments
• party core groups (dangzu, called party
  fractions) established in all non-party leading
  organs

5
Framework of Cadre Management

• Division of powers between party committees,
  organization department and party core groups
  over cadre management
• An Example Ministry of Personnel
• Personnel Minister, deputy ministers, heads and
  deputy heads of departments central party
  committee and central organization department
• division heads and deputy division heads and
  below party core group of the ministry

6
Organization System

• Central Organization Department, and the
  organizational departments of various local party
  committees
• professional relationship (yewu guanxi) there is
  no direct line of command, bypassing the party
  committees, from the center to the lower levels
  of the organizational system
• the relationship between party committees and
  their organization departments is one of
  leadership relationship (lingdao guanxi)

7
Personnel Department and Personnel System

• Hierarchy of personnel departments in the state
  structure
• a smaller system of the larger organizational and
  personnel system
• in the shadow of the more powerful organization
  departments
• overlap in leadership of organization department
  and personnel department
• different institutions with distinct
  institutional interests

8
Nomenklatura System

• The lists of offices controlled by various party
  committees
• It describes the offices over which the party
  committee has authority
• centralization or decentralization the powers of
  the central party committee how many offices
  should be directly or indirectly controlled by
  the central party committee two-levels-downward
  principle or one-level-downward principle
• decentralization in 1984 and re-centralization in
  the early 1990s

9
Nomenklatura System

• Non-elective offices party committees have
  ultimate authority
• elective offices are also on the lists
  distinction between cadre control or management
  (ganbu guanli) and appointment (renmin) or
  election election results still need to be sent
  to the relevant party authorities for approval
• transfers of cadres from one position to another
  also fall into the area of cadre management

10
Nomenklatura and Negotiation

• Formal authority of the nomenklatura system
• informal powers in cadre appointment, promotion
  and related matters
• increasing needs for negotiation and bargaining
• toward greater local influence over leadership
  appointment? Developments in recent years

11
Personnel Dossiers

• Files containing the career history of cadres
  that serve as the documentary basis for cadre
  management
• every cadre and even worker has a dossier and the
  dossiers follow the cadres with each change of
  office
• kept by either the organization department or
  personnel department
• as as instrument of control

12
Cadre Management System, Economic Reform and
Civil Service System

• The impact of economic reform on cadre management
  system job opportunities outside the state
  sector and the increasing irrelevance of the
  dossier system
• the cadre hierarchy and ranks under challenge
• the authorities over cadres in increasingly
  autonomous state enterprises
• civil service system an encroachment on the
  cadre management system

13
Cadres and Civil Servants

• Cadres and Cadre Management more encompassing
  and traditional concepts
• Civil servants and civil service system more
  narrow and newer concepts
• establishing the civil service system as a
  crucial step in reforming the cadre management
  system
• Management by categories

14
Civil Service A Controversial Concept

• Which categories?
• Administrative organs, service organizations and
  enterprises reflecting the retreat of the state
  in the reform period
• A controversial issue should more distinction be
  introduced within the category of administrative
  organs? I.e. between party and state What are the
  political implications?

15
Civil Service A Controversial Concept

• Association with the civil services in Western
  democratic countries political neutrality
• Will the power of the party over cadre management
  be challenged? Will the institutional interests
  of the organization system be affected? - if an
  agency is created to manage the civil service,
  what implications for the organization system?

16
Brief History

• The concept emerged on the political agenda in
  the mid-1980s
• a more radical version of civil service system
  was endorsed in the 13th party congress in 1987
• the political reversal following the June 4th
  crackdown put the civil service system on hold
• in 1993 a much watered down version of civil
  service system was introduced the promulgation
  of provisional civil service regulations
• A Civil Service System with Chinese
  Characteristics what are the problems that it
  sought to solve?

17
A Civil Service with Chinese Characteristics

• More emphasis on a distinction between
  administrative organs, service organizations and
  enterprises
• No more mentioning of separating the party from
  the government although party organs
  theoretically fall outside the civil service,
  they will also follow the civil service system
• the civil service system will remain subordinate
  to the cadre management system, and the power of
  the organization system will be preserved

18
Scope of the civil service

• Broader than the scope of civil service in
  Western countries
• narrower because in China there is a distinction
  between cadres and workers
• management by categories and toward a more
  distinct and formalized management system

19
Structure of the Civil Service

• Rank classification or position classification?
• Basic concepts
• positions
• grades
• leading positions and non-leading positions
• relationship between positions and grades

20
Recruitment and recruitment examination

• Symbolic importance of recruitment examination
• the political implications of recruitment
  examination
• scope of recruitment and the role of transfer of
  cadres in and out of the civil service
• Obstacles to recruitment examination
• household registration
• cadre status
• the role of recruitment examination