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The Political Geography of China's High-speed Railway Project

Sat, September 2, 2:00 to 3:30pm, Parc 55, Cyril Magnin III

Abstract

How do dictators allocate public investments across different parts of a country? The conventional wisdom of clientelism in electoral autocracies contends that dictators strategically distribute resources in hand to enlist popular support and to deter defections. Yet such an argument falls short in explaining the sub-national variations in countries where popular elections do not exist and where most government investments translate into irreversible public goods such as infrastructure. This paper argues that in these countries, the allocation of government investments is instead a function of bottom-up, bureaucratic competition among localities. Localities with greater bargaining power are more likely to procure investments from the center. I test this argument by exploiting the variation in the construction of China’s high-speed railway network. I find that provinces with their leaders holding dual appointment at a higher level—which proxy greater bargaining power within the bureaucracy—are able to secure projects and start construction earlier than other provinces. The findings of this paper highlight the relationship between bureaucratic process and distributive politics in an authoritarian setting.

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