Bureaucracy as a Vocation

• In Event: Changing Governance Models in China

Abstract

China’s state bureaucrats are commonly believed to be motivated by high-powered incentives, driving the country’s rapid economic growth for decades. This study challenges the conventional wisdom that there is clarity and coherence in the incentive structure of Chinese bureaucracies. We systematically investigate bureaucratic incentives through an original survey and in-depth interviews with bureaucrats in various regions, multiple agencies, and at different levels of the government. We also compare bureaucrats in the private and public sectors. In doing so, we revisit several fundamental questions about bureaucracy. Do all bureaucrats wish to be promoted? Do bureaucratic appointments suffer from a loyalty-competence trade-off? Do bureaucrats find meaning and satisfaction in their work, or do they feel reduced to appendages of an impersonal machine? Our study uncovers surprising heterogeneity across all these dimensions. This suggests a need for studies of bureaucracy to proceed less by sweeping theoretical assumption and more by granular empirical analysis.

Authors

• Iza Ding, Northwestern University

• Xiang Gao, Zhejiang University