The Reemergence of Personality Cult in China: The Xi Jinping Cult

• In Event: Political Succession and Elite Survival in Authoritarian Regimes

Abstract

How do personality cults emerge? The current literature argues that personality cults happen only after that leader has personalized his power vis-à-vis his elite colleagues (Svolik, 2012; Marquez, 2018). However, Schuler et al. (forthcoming) argue that we should differentiate between cults of legitimation from cults of domination. We argue that while cults of domination usually happen after the leader has personalized his power in the regime, cults of legitimation can happen before the leader has personalized his power. Building on our previous work, this project uses China in the Xi era to further substantiate our hypothesis. Consistent with our previous argument, we argue that Xi's cult of personality was not the product of his own making; instead, it was the decision of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) elites to use Xi's personality cult to legitimize the CCP regime. Nevertheless, Xi took advantage of this situation and turned his cults of legitimation into a cult of domination after serving as the general secretary of the CCP for ten years. To support my argument, we will collect data from the < People's Daily> --the official mouthpiece of the CCP from the 1930s until 2022 and compare how Xi's cult of personality looks similar to or different from the cult of Mao, which reached its peak during the Cultural Revolution. It will contribute to the literature on authoritarian regimes and the emergence of cults of personality in China.

Authors

• YONGFENG TANG, University of Arizona

• Paul J. Schuler, University of Arizona