Authoritarian Co-optation, the Territorial Dimension: Provincial Political Representation in Post-Mao China

Little comparative research has examined territorially motivated co-optation under single-party authoritarianism. I argue that national autocrats in single-party regimes also have incentives to co-opt and control the more economically resourceful but potentially more politically restive subnational regions under economic decentralization and globalization to ease resource extraction and prolong their national rule. In particular, they could take advantage of their personnel monopoly power over the regional government leadership to enlarge the presence of officials governing these regions at a collective decision-making forum within the ruling party, such as its Politburo, where the national autocrats prevail. Consistent with this logic, I find, in the case of China during 1978–2005, that larger, more export-oriented, and to a lesser extent, wealthier provinces—as well as provinces with higher urbanization, centrally administered municipalities, and ethnic minority regions—were on average more likely to be governed by sitting members of the Politburo of the sole governing Chinese Communist Party Central Committees. The findings highlight a hitherto neglected territorial dimension in efforts to explain the relative resilience of authoritarian single-party regimes.