Inherited Authoritarian Oversight: Inspecting the Central Inspection of China

• In Event: The Politics of Corruption and Anti-corruption in China

Abstract

Corruption controls in authoritarian regimes are often deemed to be temporary, irregular, and campaign-styled; the “rules of the game” could constantly change along with the change of leaders in charge. However, could some measures be inherited by new leaders? If yes, what components are likely to stay, and what will be gone or transformed? And why? We answer these questions by examining the central inspections in China.
Central inspections carried out by China's Central Inspection Teams (CITs) were revived as a major component of the anticorruption campaign during President Xi Jinping's first term. A decade later, central inspection has emerged as a pivotal instrument for establishing bureaucratic oversight, marked by wider coverage and more frequent implementation. We examine the evolution and configuration of the key elements in central inspection institutions. Focusing on CITs, we constructed a novel dataset spanning from 2013 to 2023, comprising official arrangements and inspection reports. Utilizing sentiment analysis aided by Large Language Models (LLMs) and multivariate regression techniques, we uncover various dimensions of the inspection system, including the training and promotion of inspection officials, and the deployment of different strategies toward diverse organizational types subject to inspection.
This analysis sheds new light on the mechanisms and consequences of bureaucratic oversight within authoritarian regimes.

Authors

• Jiangnan Zhu, The University of Hong Kong

• Frank Yifei Zhu, The University of Hong Kong