(iPoster) It’s All about Who You Know: Patronage Networks and Public Sector Job Allocation

• In Event: Poster Session: Comparative Politics of Developing Countries & South Asian Politics
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Comparative Politics of Developing Countries

Abstract

Existing research suggests that merit is a key determinant of political recruitment and selection in China. While merit plays a significant role, our understanding of public sector job allocation—crucial for determining how many job openings are available for aspirants and how many bureaucratic resources political leaders can leverage—remains limited. Using one million job listings from 2013 to 2023, this study will explore the following questions: 1) Do political connections with higher-level leaders influence the number of headcounts allocated to lower-level leaders? 2) Are centralized departments more insulated from the impacts of patronage? and 3) Which types of jobs, whether in the party or government sectors, are more likely to be influenced by these connections? This research contributes to the literature on political recruitment and selection by examining whether the allocation of public sector job headcounts, which shapes the competitiveness of the civil service exam and the government performance claimed by political leaders, is fundamentally distorted.

Authors

• Rui Zuo, University of Texas at Austin

• Xiaoxia Huang, Syracuse University