Institutional Change Under the Impact of an Evolving Private Sector in the PRC – The Case of Opening the Party to Private EntrepreneursElena Meyer-Clement

ASIEN – Nr. 92 (2004) pp. 64–80

Along with the renunciation of central planning, declining capacities of the Chinese party-state in the local political institutions have at least since the mid-1990s become visible. From a regime-centred perspective, the shifting of resources and authority from higher to lower levels of the party-state and the new local alliances between officials and private entrepreneurs attracted much attention. The societal perspective, on the other hand, stressed the greater autonomy and power of citizens and emerging social groups like the private entrepreneurs, which would further push back the power of the party-state. Nonetheless, the Chinese leadership showed no signs of principally including the political institutions of communist power in the reform project. The political demands of a Leninist party-state were instead associated with stable organisational structures and ideological foundations, which would ensure party leadership over the bureaucracy and society…