The Recruitment Process for Grassroots Cadres in a Chinese County: The CCP Organization Department and Its Alarm Function

Abstract

Through field research conducted within the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) County S Organization Department, this article finds that, under the CCP’s 2012 Eighteenth Party Congress policies of strengthening local governance and “whoever recommends a cadre is responsible for their performance,” the powers of the county organization departments have been enhanced. The main task of an organization department is the selection of cadres for postings. The County S Organization Department can put forward candidates for posts and also exercises an alarm function for the county party committee, although the party committee still has the final say in cadre appointments. The County S Organization Department has also enhanced its management of cadres’ personnel files to provide accurate reference material for use in cadre selection. The strengthening of the powers of the organization departments may provide an effective solution to the problem of information asymmetry faced by the party committees, enabling their leaders to avoid being held to account for mistakes in cadre selection. It appears that, since 2012, more norms have been developed for selecting cadres, thus facilitating the creation of a “political meritocracy” at the grassroots level.

Keywords

alarm cadre selection county organization department personnel files political meritocracy

In February 2017, at Chinese New Year, a television program produced by the Shanxi Provincial Party Committee Organization Department, entitled Our Day 我们这一天, was broadcast on many official television channels in China (Gongchangdangyuanwang, 2017). The program depicted the daily lives of cadres working in a provincial organization department. They were shown rising at 6:10 a.m., processing more than ten kilograms of documents per day in their office, making dozens of calls to other departments, working in poor villages where they helped alleviate poverty, and working overtime until 11 p.m. Although the program did not reveal too many details of their work, it still marked a breakthrough, as it was the first official television program in China featuring the work of an organization department.

The program provoked public discussion and aroused the authors’ curiosity about that most mysterious of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) departments—the Organization Department 组织部—prompting us to conduct this research project.

There is no denying that among the CCP’s numerous departments, the Organization Department is one of the least covered in the literature. All other departments, including the United Front Work Department, the Propaganda Department, the Party Committee General Office, the Political and Legal Affairs Commission, and the Commission for Discipline Inspection, have been discussed extensively in various academic studies (Brady, 2008; Shambaugh, 2007; Joske, 2020; Guo, 2012; Guo, 2014; Tsai and Liao, 2018; Zhong, 2016). The work of the Organization Department is touched upon in the literature on cadre selection, appointment, and assessment (Brødsgaard, 2002), but there is almost no in-depth analysis of the Organization Department per se.¹ Those nonacademic works that deal with the operation of the Organization Department tend to lack credibility.² Scholars point out that the CCP has strong personnel management capabilities (Zheng, 2010), but the lack of empirical research into the Organization Department seriously limits academic understanding of how the party operates.

The precursor of the central CCP Organization Department, the Organization Bureau 组织局, modeled on the Soviet Union’s Orgburo, was established in 1921. After the CCP came to power in China, it set up organization departments with responsibility for cadre management and party building at the county level and above. These organization departments come under the direct leadership of the party committees at the same level. The head of an organization department must take orders from the secretary of the corresponding party committee rather than from the corresponding department at a superior level, with which it has only a professional relationship (Manion, 1985: 209). In other words, there is a typical “horizontal” (kuai kuai 块块) management relationship between a given party committee and the organization department at the same level. This situation has not changed much since the establishment of the CCP regime.

However, since its Eighteenth Party Congress at the end of 2012, the CCP has changed the way it manages its cadres to achieve certain political goals (Doyon, 2018). One important policy in particular—“strictly governing the party” 从严治党—has changed since the Eighteenth Party Congress (Party Literature Research Center of the CCP Central Committee, 2016), and we may gain a clearer understanding of this policy from an examination of the cadre recruitment process. This can be accomplished if the question is discussed from an institutional perspective, taking the Organization Department into account.

For this study of the Organization Department at the county level, the authors conducted field research and in-depth interviews in County S in Central China. County-level organization departments are responsible for “cadres managed at the county level” 县管干部, who occupy “section-level” 科级 posts.³ In the course of this study, it was found that in the process of cadre selection, the county organization department exercises a “political alarm” function. If nominees are found to be incompetent, the organization department has seven chances to warn the county party committee of that. This works as a braking mechanism that helps prevent the party committee from selecting incompetent cadres for promotion.

Despite exercising this alarm function, under the principle of “horizontal” management, the County S Organization Department (hereafter the CSOD) still must defer to the County S Party Committee (especially the party secretary) in the process of selecting cadres. In the past, county organization departments had hardly any chance to object to candidates recommended by the party committee, and the assessment process was in most cases a mere formality. Since the Eighteenth Party Congress, however, under the policy of “strictly governing the party,” the principle of “whoever recommends a cadre is responsible for their performance” 谁推荐, 谁负责, has become the rule (Wu Haihong, 2015). In order to avoid incurring punishment for appointing incompetent cadres, county party committees now rely more on information passed to them by the county organization departments.

We argue that in the realm of local governance, county party committees and “cadres managed by the county” (section-level cadres) play the roles of principals and agents, respectively.⁴ Adversely affected by the problem of information asymmetry, the county party committee may not be fully informed as to the competence or moral character of section-level cadres. The county-level organization department holds that kind of information and can therefore function as an alarm in the process of cadre selection. The organization department will carry out extensive assessments of the candidates suggested by the party committee and warn the committee if any of the candidates are unfit for promotion.

Since 2012, this alarm function has been more prominent than in the past. It facilitates the recruitment of suitable cadres by local governments and party committees, thus enhancing local governance. This article does not argue that the system works perfectly. We believe that organization departments have limited effectiveness because they are only authorized to make suggestions concerning candidates put forward by the party committees; they cannot veto appointments and they are still subject to supervision by the party committees. Finally, the selection of grassroots cadres, especially those at the section level, is governed by many rules, and it seems that Daniel A. Bell’s concept of “political meritocracy” may be a useful one in this context.⁵

The Need for an “Alarm” Function

We argue that since its Eighteenth Party Congress the CCP has strengthened the functions of the organization departments to reduce the possibility of party committee leaders being held to account for “lapses during cadre selection” 用人失察. Holding officials to account for their mistakes has become the norm in recent years, and the party has adjusted the indicators by which it assesses its cadres’ capacity to meet the needs of national development. Unlike in Western democracies, where officials are held to account at the ballot box, in China they are subject to punishment by higher-level leaders (Heimer, 2006; Shi and Ni, 2017). According to the principle of “the party manages cadres” 党管干部, and China’s nomenklatura system (Burns, 2006), the party committees have the biggest say in the appointment of personnel. But the circulation of information within the CCP system is often restricted (Harding, 1981: 5), meaning that party committees do not always understand the background of the cadres they are seeking to appoint. This may be described as a situation of information asymmetry in the process of personnel recruitment,⁶ and it sometimes leads to the promotion of “cadres who are unfit for office” 带病上岗.

Since its Eighteenth Congress, the CCP has imposed harsher penalties for mistakes committed by its officials. For example, Article 73 of the 2016 revised version of the “CCP Disciplinary Regulations” 中国共产党纪律处分条例 stipulates that if a cadre commits a violation of discipline that has a serious political impact, the leader who promoted him or her to that position may be expelled from the party (Gongchangdangyuanwang, 2016). The 2019 version of the “CCP Accountability Regulations” 中国共产党问责条例 also states that leaders must be held accountable for violating cadre selection and appointment regulations, and this is also the case if the leader has already been transferred to another post or has retired (Article 16). This is known as “lifetime accountability” 终身问责 (Government of the People’s Republic of China, 2019). In the past, only incumbent leaders were held accountable for errors in cadre selection. Fear of “lifetime accountability” undoubtedly makes party committee leaders more cautious when selecting cadres.

Another recent political development is that the laws and regulations governing cadre selection are more detailed and institutionalized than they used to be (Zheng, 2015), making punishment for lapses more likely. Article 15 of the “Intra-party Supervision Regulations of the CCP” 中国共产党党内监督条例, issued in 2016, stipulates that party committee secretaries at all levels are the “first persons responsible” 第一责任人 (Xinhua, 2016a). If any wrongdoing occurs among party cadres, the secretary must be punished alongside the wrongdoers themselves. Article 4 of the “CCP Accountability Regulations” stipulates that if a cadre is guilty of a violation of discipline, the leading cadre of the party committee must bear “major responsibility” 主体责任. The CCP has reminded party committees that their main responsibilities are “to strengthen leadership, select and use cadres well, and prevent unhealthy tendencies and corruption problems arising in the selection and recruitment of cadres” (People.cn, 2016). Since these various regulations have come into force, party committees at all levels have been held strictly accountable by their superiors for any lapses among their subordinates.

One problem that leaders often face when they are selecting cadres is information asymmetry. The CCP uses a variety of mechanisms to strengthen the party committees’ control over the information needed to select and appoint cadres, and these have been widely discussed in the literature (Heberer and Trappel, 2013). However, there has been insufficient empirical research that would enable us to judge whether cadre assessment results, for example, have a real impact on the selection of cadres for promotion. Party committees have also been instructed to “mull over” 酝酿 appointments before making a decision (Guoguang Wu, 2015: 238–48). This is designed to ensure that party committees take into account all available information about a candidate to avoid appointing someone who will perform poorly or whom others are unwilling to support.

Since the Eighteenth Party Congress, for fear of being held to account for their mistakes in cadre selection, leaders have had to use other mechanisms to reduce the problem of information asymmetry. One important such mechanism is the “alarm” function of the organization departments.⁷ The concept of an alarm function in the political process has been discussed by Mathew McCubbins and Thomas Schwartz, who argue that the principal can use a system design similar to a fire alarm to reduce agent problems. For example, McCubbins and Schwartz see the legislative and administrative branches in a democracy as having a kind of principal–agent relationship. When the legislature authorizes administrative agencies to implement certain policies, it uses a mechanism similar to a fire alarm, such as hearings or other channels of citizen participation, to prevent inaction or abuse of power by the administration (McCubbins and Schwartz, 1984).

Some scholars have attempted to apply this concept to contemporary Chinese politics. For example, some have argued that trade unions act as a “fire alarm,” helping local governments to maintain social stability by keeping them informed about workers’ dissatisfaction with cadres or government policies (Chen, 2011: 134–38). Mary E. Gallagher also regards the alarm function exercised by the unions as an efficient mechanism for maintaining stability (Gallagher, 2017: 105–11). In the case of the cadre selection process, a party committee needs an institution like the organization department to exercise its alarm function to ensure that unsuitable candidates do not get promoted, enabling party committees to avoid future punishment.

In this article, we will show how, since the Eighteenth Party Congress, the county-level organization department has exercised its alarm function in this process, providing feedback to the party committee. The department may also be seen as acting as a brake on the party committee, reminding it to think twice before choosing an unsuitable candidate.

Cadre selection, a multilevel process led by the party committee, may be divided into four main steps: recommendation, inspection, resolution, and appointment. From our sample case, we find that the county-level organization department has as many as seven opportunities to sound the alarm during the selection process. Faced with the problem of information asymmetry, the county party committee now places more reliance on feedback from its organization department than it did in the past. If problems with a nominee are discovered, the organization department must immediately warn the party committee; in this way, party committee members can avoid punishment by their superiors for making an improper appointment.

Field Interviews and the County S Organization Department

The authors selected County S as our sample case to conduct field research. There is a lack of empirical material on this subject in the extant literature, and we believe that this study can be used as a heuristic case for related discussions (Eckstein, 2000: 137–40). County S, which is located in City X in Central China, has been used by the CCP as a pilot county for many local government reforms. Compared with its neighbors, County S is large in area and more developed. As of June 30, 2020, the county had a total of 1,210 cadres at the deputy-section level and above, including 197 at the section level, 972 at the deputy-section level, 6 at the county level, and 35 at the deputy-county level. On average, more than 50 cadres are appointed each year at the deputy-section level and 10 at the section level.⁸

Before conducting field interviews, the authors spent time establishing a network of contacts within the CSOD. Because of the sensitive nature of their work, organization departments generally do not give interviews to scholars. However, in mid-2018, L, a university friend of one of the authors, was appointed head of the CSOD, so with L’s help the authors visited County S four times—during the periods August 14–18, 2018; January 28–February 1, 2019; August 12–16, 2019; and August 19–22, 2020. During these visits, the authors interviewed twenty staff members of the CSOD and other cadres, including the department head (who is currently a member of the Standing Committee of the County S Party Committee), a retired member of the Standing Committee of the County S Party Committee, six heads of subordinate units of the CSOD, and twelve cadres from other units in County S. During their visits, the authors collected numerous relevant documents of the CSOD. Outside the above periods, the authors conducted interviews with County S officials through WeChat and by telephone. Having conducted their research according to the above arrangements, the authors can confirm that their data have a high degree of credibility.

In terms of its structure, the CSOD has a department head and three deputies. It has six subordinate units: (1) the General Office 办公室, mainly responsible for day-to-day administration, finance, and logistics; (2) the First Cadre Section 干部一科, responsible for the inspection, training, and selection of cadres in County S (this is “one office with three name plates” 一套人马, 三块招牌 as it includes the Civil Servant Management Office 公务员管理办公室 and the Young Cadres Section 青年干部科);⁹ (3) the Second Cadre Section, which has “four name plates” 四块招牌, acting simultaneously as the County Party Committee Cadre Education Section 县委干部教育科, the Cadre Supervision Section 干部监督科, and the Talent Section 人才科; (4) the Organization Section 组织科, responsible for party member development, education, and party building at the local level; (5) the Archives Room 档案室, responsible for the management and collection of information on personnel; and (6) the Research Office 研究室, which includes the Party Member Internet Education Management Center 党员网络教育管理中心, and which is responsible for organizing investigations and drafting leaders’ reports and speeches.¹⁰ The first and second cadre sections are collectively referred to as the Cadre Section 干部科.

The CSOD is the core department of the County S Party Committee, involved in almost all the important aspects of political work in the county.¹¹ For example, the County S Party Committee has long been concerned about AIDS prevention and treatment, so the CSOD has included this topic in the education and training of party members and cadres, whose future promotion will depend on their performance in this area. The CSOD works in a variety of areas, but the main one is the recruitment of cadres. This task can be divided into two parts: (1) recommendation, inspection, resolution, and appointment (the responsibilities of the Cadre Section); and (2) the management of cadres’ personnel files (the responsibility of the Organization Section and Archives Room).¹² Figure 1 depicts the structure of the CSOD and the responsibilities of its various departments.

Figure 1.

Main responsibilities of the CSOD.

A cadre’s personnel file contains a variety of documents, including the “Cadre Basic Information Form” 干部基本情况表, to which the organization department refers when it is nominating candidates for posts; the “Democratic Evaluation” 民主测评 and the “Opinion Request Form” 征求意见表, both of which are used in the assessment of cadres; “Records of Conversations” 谈话记录, that is, conversations between the organization department and candidates for promotion; the “Basic Information Verification Form for Targeted Officials” 考察对象干部档案基本信息审核表, which is used by the organization department when it is checking whether information held on a particular cadre is accurate; and the “Comrade XX Inspection Materials” XX同志考察材料, which contains the organization department’s overall evaluation of the candidate for promotion and which is submitted to the party committee for final discussion.

The First Step in Personnel Selection: Recommendation

In most cases, the process of nomination for posts is not made public (McGregor, 2012: 73), so how candidates are nominated is regarded as the most mysterious phase in the selection process.

As soon as a vacancy occurs in a working department—because of the retirement, transfer, or removal of a cadre—a successor must be nominated. Nomination is the responsibility of the First Cadre Section, which holds the “Basic Information Forms” for all the cadres in County S (see Figure 2). The forms are filled out by the cadres themselves, giving their age, birthplace, education, areas of expertise, work experience, length of service since joining the party, health, annual assessment results, and résumé. Based on this information, the organization department draws up a preliminary list of nominees best suited to the job in question.¹³

Figure 2.

County S Cadre basic information form.

There must always be more nominees than there are vacancies. When a deputy-section-level post is vacant, the organization department usually nominates two candidates. If it is a section-level post, there may be as many as three nominees. Organization department staff will put the résumés and personnel files of the nominees in order and on the basis of these documents will state their reasons for the nominations on the “Adjustment Instructions” 调整说明 forms and submit them to the head of the department for approval.¹⁴ This part of the process is called the cadre selection “proposal” 动议, and it is carried out in strict secrecy. Despite this secrecy, would-be candidates will try their best to find out what has been included in the “Adjustment Instructions.” Some officials who have not been nominated may tip off the nominees out of jealousy.¹⁵

Officials of the CSOD particularly value recommendations that come from their superiors. When it comes to filling important positions, such as those within a financial department, leaders of the County S Party Committee, or even leaders of prefecture-level cities within the county, may ask for their favored candidates to be included in the “Adjustment Instructions.”¹⁶ Retired leaders may also recommend candidates, although they will be regarded as “interfering in politics” 干政 or “being retired but not retired” 退而不休 if they directly recommend nominees to the organization department. Instead, they get former subordinates still working in the public sector to express their opinions on their behalf. However, the organization department will not necessarily listen to these opinions.¹⁷ Retired leaders have limited influence in contemporary Chinese politics.

As we mentioned above, top leaders may not know local cadres very well. If the candidates they recommend are later found to be incompetent, the leaders must take responsibility for their recommendations. In County S, for example, before the Eighteenth Party Congress, leaders of the County S Party Committee would recommend anyone based on personal connections—one leader even recommended their driver for a grassroots leadership post.

Since the CCP’s Eighteenth Congress, party committee members have become more cautious about recommending candidates. According to the “whoever recommends a cadre is responsible for their performance” principle, if the recommended person causes problems in the future, checks (daocha 倒查) will be made to find out who originally recommended them, whether that leader carried out the requisite inspection process before recommending the cadre, and whether any problems were found but not dealt with. If things were not done correctly, and the disciplinary violation committed by the promoted cadre has a significant negative impact on politics and society, the leader who recommended them will be severely punished. For example, they may be removed from all their posts in the party, or even expelled from the party altogether. If the recommendation process was conducted adequately, and the problems (such as corruption or violations of party discipline or the law) arose after the promotion, the leader who recommended the cadre will be deemed to bear less responsibility. They may get away with a “warning” 党内警告. From the above, it is clear that under the current “lifetime accountability” system, leaders must be extremely cautious when recruiting cadres. This is why they rely on information provided by the organization department and other units.¹⁸

Nowadays, if a party committee member wants to recommend someone for a post, they must be sure that the person is competent. In this regard, the organization departments act as a “fire alarm.” Before the Eighteenth Party Congress, organization departments would usually accept candidates recommended by the party committee without asking too many questions about them. After the CCP’s Eighteenth Congress, however, whoever recommends cadres for posts must take responsibility for their performance and behavior, and party committees tend to rely more on feedback from their organization departments. The organization department conducts a rigorous vetting process based on information about the candidate’s past performance and ethics contained in their personnel file. If the department discovers any issues, it will immediately alert the leader who has recommended the candidate so that the nomination procedure can be terminated.

In County S, after a list of recommended candidates has been drafted, the head of the CSOD will submit the “Adjustment Instructions” to the secretary of the County S Party Committee. If the secretary agrees to the list, the head of the CSOD will convene a meeting attended by the secretary, the county magistrate, the executive deputy secretary of the county party committee, and the secretary of the county commission for discipline inspection. These five individuals constitute the “five-member team” 五人小组. County S has been developing the conventions governing the selection of cadres and nomination by the five-member team since 2008.¹⁹ At the team’s meeting, the head of the CSOD introduces the preliminary list of nominees and the team chooses which of the two or three candidates it wishes to appoint for each post.

Since the Eighteenth Party Congress, however, the meetings of the five-member team have changed significantly. Before 2012, discussions were brief and casual. For example, if the secretary of the county party committee wanted to nominate a candidate, they might simply say, “X is good. Let him take this post. What do you think?” The other team members would then immediately take the hint and show “strong support” for the nomination.²⁰ The meetings have become more formal since the Eighteenth Party Congress, however. The secretary of the county party committee and the other members of the five-member team pay more attention to candidates’ personnel files and their “Adjustment Instructions.” Detailed minutes are taken by the CSOD for future reference. If issues arise with any of the appointees in the future, the superior authorities will refer to the meeting minutes to find out who supported the promotion so that they can be punished.²¹ From the workings of the five-member team, it can be seen that the selection process has undergone a certain degree of institutionalization (Miller, 2008; Landry, Lü, and Duan, 2018: 1095–98), especially at the level of grassroots cadres.

Discovering Cadres’ “Real” Performance through Inspections

The next step is to examine the performance and integrity of the nominee. To do this, the CSOD sends an inspection team to the nominee’s work unit, consisting of no fewer than two inspectors and generally led by the leader of the First Cadre Section or Second Cadre Section. The inspection usually consists of four stages: a “democratic evaluation” 民主测评, “individual meetings” 个别谈话, “inspection of archives” 查阅档案, and a “field visit” 实地走访, that is, a visit to the area where the nominee lives.

For the democratic evaluation, the inspection team first convenes a democratic evaluation meeting 民主测评会, usually attended by around thirty to fifty colleagues of the nominee. The meeting’s participants are required to fill out a “Democratic Evaluation and Opinion Form” 民主测评及征求意见表 (Figure 3) on which they indicate their opinions concerning the competence of the nominee and whether they agree to them being promoted. In addition, the participants can also record their views on the integrity of the nominee. The fact that the forms are not signed encourages the participants to express their opinions frankly.²²

Figure 3.

Democratic evaluation and opinion form.

This democratic evaluation process was usually a mere formality before the Eighteenth Party Congress. The inspection team would suppress bad reviews of the nominee and they would still be promoted. Since 2012, organization departments at all levels have required inspection teams to release the reviews immediately. County S’s superior unit (City X) also stipulated in 2015 that if more than half of the participants of the democratic evaluation meeting believe that the nominee is incompetent or oppose their promotion, the promotion procedure will be terminated. In those circumstances, the existing post-holder will remain in position, or the post will be left temporarily vacant for at least six months before another selection procedure commences.²³

This process encourages cadres who are seeking promotion to keep on good terms with their colleagues.²⁴ After all, in Chinese officialdom, “harmonious relationships” 人和 constitute one of the most important factors determining whether a cadre advances in their career.

The individual meeting with the nominee is conducted by the inspection team and the head or other leaders of the nominee’s unit. The aim of the meeting is to give the inspectors an idea of the nominee’s integrity, abilities, and political thinking. The meeting is recorded in a document known as the “Record of Conversation” 谈话记录.²⁵ Before the Eighteenth Party Congress, inspection teams tended to ask abstract questions, such as “Are you firm in your political stance?” or “Do you support the party’s leadership?”; naturally all the responses were positive.²⁶ More recently, inspection teams have tried to make sure that nominees conform to the party’s political ideals, and thus pay particular attention to observing whether they have “genuine concern” 真感情 for the masses or whether they are just trying to pursue “fame and fortune” 名利.

The questions have also become more specific. The inspection team will often ask the nominee to give examples that show that they have the above qualities. For example, they may be asked, “What practical problems have you helped the masses solve in your work?” or “Do you undertake difficult tasks on your own initiative?” The inspection team will also inquire about how often they take part in private gatherings and the reasons for those gatherings, and they will investigate whether there is any likelihood of the nominee “forming factions” 搞团团伙伙 within the party, something that is frowned upon by the central party. After the meeting, the nominee is asked to sign the “Record of Conversation.” This is then placed on file so that it can be taken into consideration when the party committee makes its decision.²⁷

Next, the inspection team will review the archived files of the nominee and complete a “Basic Information Verification Form for a Targeted Official” (see Figure 4). This form is similar in content to the “Cadre Basic Information Form.” However, as mentioned above, the latter is filled out by the cadres themselves and submitted to the organization department, whereas the “Basic Information Verification Form for a Targeted Official” is completed by the organization department’s inspection team after they have verified the content of the “Cadre Basic Information Form.” At this stage, the inspection team is checking whether the nominee has completed their form correctly.²⁸

Figure 4.

County S Basic Information Verification Form for a Targeted Official.

Finally, the inspection team will visit the community where the nominee lives in order to find out about their family life and social connections through interviews with neighbors. The investigation focuses on whether the family is harmonious, whether the “family traditions” 家风 are good, whether they are extravagant and wasteful, who their friends are, and whether they have close contact with any undesirable people.²⁹ Before the Eighteenth Party Congress, a cadre’s family situation was generally regarded as a private matter, and field visits were rarely made. For example, in County S, the CSOD did not investigate when a nominee was reported to be conducting an extramarital affair. Even when a nominee’s pregnant lover filed a petition with the CSOD, the cadre’s promotion was not affected.³⁰

Since 2012, the CCP has attached great importance to cadres’ family traditions, and thus field visits have become an essential part of the promotion process. If a nominee is proven to have conducted an extramarital affair or there are other circumstances that mark them out as having bad family traditions, not only will the nominee be classified as unfit for promotion on that occasion but they will also be disqualified from promotion in the future.³¹

When the above process is completed, the inspection team produces a comprehensive evaluation of the nominee, which is recorded in a document entitled “Comrade XX Inspection Materials” (Figure 5). This document has a standard format and it consists of the cadre’s basic résumé, as well as views on their moral fiber, abilities, diligence, integrity, and other characteristics. The document serves as an important source of information for the party committee when it is deciding whether the cadre should be promoted.

Figure 5.

Template of “Comrade XX Inspection Materials” form, County S.

Party Committee Resolution and Appointment

After the county-level organization department completes its inspection process, it will hold a “head of department meeting” 部长办公会 at which all the information on the nominee is put together.³² Then, the five-member team meets again to review this information and make a final decision.

The five-member team plays a decisive role in the selection of cadres. Any cadre in County S who is seeking promotion, especially from deputy-section to section level, must be recommended by at least one member of the five-member team without any other member vetoing this.³³ The secretary of the county party committee is at the core of the five-member team, and anyone they nominate will usually be backed by the other team members. Indeed, if other team members want to nominate someone during the meeting, they will often communicate with the secretary in advance in the hope of receiving their support. In line with the current political culture of “harmony is most precious” 以和为贵, the team members tend not to object to one another’s nominations.

However, if a nominee supported by one team member is opposed by more than one other member, the secretary of the county party committee must step in. For example, the secretary may rule that the controversial cadre should not be promoted this time, but they will promise to give the cadre priority when another vacancy occurs so that the team member who proposed them does not lose face 面子. Sometimes, the secretary of the county party committee will suspend the selection process and allow the current post-holder to stay in the post in order to avoid conflict among the group members.³⁴

Before the Eighteenth Party Congress, the five-member team did not pay much attention to the data provided by the organization department when it was deciding which nominee to appoint. Nominees would usually contact members of the team to canvass their support. The team members would already have identified their favored candidates before they consulted the data.³⁵ Since the Eighteenth Party Congress, however, members of the five-member team are held accountable for the behavior and performance of the cadres they appoint, and thus they tend to pay more attention to the inspection materials provided by the organization department. If the organization department has issues with a cadre, the team is unlikely to promote them.

The five-member team will usually terminate the promotion process if the organization department mentions that the nominee appears to have violated some item of party discipline that the party center particularly values. For example, the CCP emphasizes that the relationship between cadres and enterprises should be “clear” 清 and “friendly” 親 (People.cn, 2017). If the nominee has an excessively close relationship with the business sector—for example, if he or she is frequently invited to banquets—the promotion process may be terminated as this could be a source of political trouble in the future. The organization department’s alarm function creates serious psychological stress among cadres. To avoid being reported during a key period for promotion, some cadres try to reduce the number of unnecessary private banquet invitations they accept or they leave early after delivering a brief speech, forgoing the food and wine.³⁶

After the meeting of the five-member team, the list of cadres to be promoted will be finalized. In County S, a meeting of the party standing committee will then be convened. This will be attended by personnel from the organization department (such as the head of the department and the leaders of the First Cadre Section and Second Cadre Section), and the head of the organization department will present their recommendations. If a majority of standing committee members agree, the nominees will be approved.³⁷

After the County S Party Committee makes its decision, the appointment procedure begins. The CSOD also exercises its alarm function at this point. The section responsible for the supervision of cadres (the Second Cadre Section) will publish the list of candidates for appointment, along with information from their personnel files and the positions for which they are proposed. Anyone who disagrees with an appointment has five working days in which to submit an objection to the Second Cadre Section.³⁸ This is to make sure that cadres are subject to public supervision. During those five working days, the CSOD carries out a final inspection based on reports received from the public. The Second Cadre Section is responsible for verifying any tip-offs, and if there is strong evidence and the tip-off makes a strong impact, the organization department must immediately report to the five-member team and suggest that the promotion process for that individual be stopped. In 2015, there was a case in County S of a candidate for promotion who was reported to have violated the family planning policy and placed an unreported child in a relative’s home. As soon as the Second Cadre Section verified this report, it recommended that the cadre’s promotion be canceled.³⁹

Work in Support of Personnel Selection: File Management

Personnel files for CCP cadres were first created during the party’s Yan’an period, and they have been an important point of reference in the selection and appointment of cadres ever since (Gao, 2018: 197–220). However, as the number of cadres increased, the problem of fraudulent material in the archives became more serious. In a hunt for such fraudulent information, the central Organization Department conducted a review of national cadre files in 2014 (Xinhua, 2016b).

Since its Eighteenth Congress in 2012, the CCP has attached great importance to the keeping of detailed files on cadres, and the County S Archives Room has played a more prominent role in the cadre recruitment process. In order to ensure that the content of the files is accurate, the Archives Room carries out comprehensive reviews, checking the cadres’ dates of birth, work histories, the dates that they joined the party, education, family members, and important social connections.⁴⁰ All of these details play an extremely important part in cadre selection. For example, since the Eighteenth Party Congress, the CCP has concentrated on promoting younger cadres, thus making a candidate’s date of birth more important. Many posts in County S have clear age requirements. Cadres above a certain age will have limited opportunities for promotion. Since 2015, County S has stipulated that no one above the age of forty should be appointed as township chief.⁴¹ Work history is also important. Candidates for promotion in County S have to meet certain work experience criteria—for example, promotion to a section-level post requires more than two years in a deputy-section-level position. There are no firm criteria regarding the length of time a cadre has been a party member in County S, but cadres who joined earlier in their careers will be seen as more politically reliable.⁴² More highly educated cadres have an advantage in the promotion stakes. Since the Eighteenth Party Congress, County S has stipulated that all newly promoted section-level cadres should have at least a college degree.⁴³

Next, it is necessary to check on cadres’ families and friends. This was something that did not feature in file verification before the Eighteenth Party Congress. The central party requires leading cadres to keep an eye on their “affiliates” 身边人 and has called for the thorough investigation of cases of cadres using their status to benefit their associates. Since the Eighteenth Party Congress, investigation of family members has become an important part of the file verification process when cadres are vying for promotion in County S.

If a member of a cadre’s family uses the cadre’s position to gain privileges, the cadre’s promotion prospects will be adversely affected. In 2018, County S originally planned to promote one particular cadre to serve as the vice president of the county court. However, when the CSOD checked the cadre’s personnel files, it was found that his wife worked in a law firm. Under pressure from the CSOD, the cadre’s wife resigned from her job as a lawyer. In addition, a cadre who has family members living abroad may be considered to be insufficiently loyal to the motherland, as they could potentially flee the country to escape corruption charges. The final factor that is taken into consideration is the cadre’s social connections, mainly their close friends. Similarly, anyone the organization department considers to be affiliated to a cadre will be checked to prevent cadres from coming under the influence of undesirable friends and being drawn into illegality.⁴⁴

The CSOD has in the past found fraudulent material in cadres’ files. In one 2018 case, staff of the Archives Room noticed that on one candidate’s “Basic Information Form” the year of birth was given as 1980, whereas an article the cadre published while at university gave his year of birth as 1978. Further investigations revealed that the cadre had bribed the archives management staff to bring forward his date of birth, thus giving him more opportunities for promotion in the future.⁴⁵

In order to improve the comprehensiveness of the data on cadres, the CSOD began creating electronic files in 2015.⁴⁶ Electronic files offer two advantages over paper ones. First, they permit the storage of a more comprehensive range of information, including public speeches the cadre has delivered and articles they have published, information on their health and the property they hold, as well as any information that has been received through tip-offs. Electronic information is, of course, also easier to retrieve. For example, using traditional paper files, it would take the CSOD a long time to compile a list of, say, all cadres who were rated as excellent in poverty alleviation work in 2019, but this task can be completed in an instant when the information is stored electronically.⁴⁷

Political Meritocracy and the Selection of Grassroots Cadres

Since the CCP’s Eighteenth Congress, the organization departments have been more active in exercising their alarm function. During the process of personnel selection, the departments provide more accurate feedback to the party committees through assessments, visits, and materials stored in cadres’ personnel files, all of which help the committees appoint competent candidates. Before the Eighteenth Party Congress, the party committees were reluctant for the organization departments to issue too many warnings regarding unsuitable candidates for promotion, as that only disrupted the selection process. If candidates nominated by the party committees failed to be promoted, the organization departments would be blamed, and its cadres might face transfer to other marginal departments where they would be forced to remain until retirement. In those days, the organization departments deliberately covered up problems they found during the inspection process. For example, when an organization department was investigating the working life of a nominee, it would choose to interview a recent recruit in the nominee’s unit rather than an experienced colleague, as these interviews were unlikely to yield much negative feedback.⁴⁸

Now that leaders’ chances of being held accountable for lapses in the promotion process have increased significantly, they are eager for the organization departments to provide them with as much information on candidates as possible. From Table 1, we can see that the CSOD can now exercise its alarm function at seven points in the cadre selection process, and that the thorough checking of candidates’ personnel files by the department plays a vital supporting role.

Table 1.

Cadre Selection Process and Personnel Management, County S.

PeriodStep		Eighteenth Party Congress (2012)–Present	Alarms
1.	Recommendation	After consulting personnel files, the organization department must alert the county party committee if the recommended candidate is found to be incompetent.	1st
2	Inspection	a. Results of democratic evaluation must be published. If scores are too low, the organization department must alert the county party committee.	2nd
		b. Content of individual meetings becomes more specific. Includes questioning on candidate’s abilities, ethics, and family life. If the organization department uncovers any issues, it must alert the party committee.	3rd
		c. Files are thoroughly checked and the verification form is completed. If the organization department uncovers any issues, it must alert the party committee.	4th
		d. Field visits conducted and candidates’ neighbors interviewed. If any issues are uncovered, the organization department must alert the party committee.	5th
3	Resolution	Detailed minutes kept of five-member team discussions. The organization department provides specific information to the team to explain why the candidate is deemed competent.	6th
4	Appointment	Notice of appointment published. If any adverse reports are received, they must be verified by the organization department and if found to be true must be reported to the party committee	7th

Today, the functions of the county organization departments in the process of cadre selection have been strengthened, probably because of the CCP’s emphasis on local governance, for which competent cadres are essential.⁴⁹ After the CCP’s Eighteenth Congress, the organization departments recognize the necessity of keeping accurate files on cadres, which also reflects the importance that the CCP attaches to the evaluation and selection of officials. We argue that this is part of the development of a “political meritocracy” at the grassroots level in China, with organization departments potentially exercising their alarm function at seven points in the cadre selection process, allowing their superiors to slam on the brakes if there is evidence that candidates are unfit for office.

According to Daniel A. Bell, China is showing no sign of moving toward a Western-style system of elected officials but is instead implementing a sophisticated cadre selection process. He notes that in addition to being efficient administrators, officials deemed “excellent” in China must also be virtuous and have good social skills (Bell, 2016: 95). In our sample case, the CSOD attaches great importance to both a candidate’s performance and whether they enjoy harmonious relations 人和 with their neighbors and colleagues. An important part of CCP political culture is expressed in the slogan “want to work, be able to work, and get work done” 想干事、能干事、干成事. And whether the work gets done may no longer be solely a matter of a cadre’s administrative ability but whether they are popular. If an organization department finds that a nominee does not have good relations with their neighbors or colleagues, and is criticized for being “not easy to get along with,” this must also be reported to the party committee, because “harmonious relationships” are critical when it comes to getting work done.

An emphasis on “morality” 德 has also become more obvious since 2012. Some scholars argue that the Western term “meritocracy” does not fully correspond to the concepts of “morality” or “virtue” 贤 in Chinese politics (Huang, 2018: 8). The “virtue” emphasized by the CCP nowadays, in addition to meaning “keeping one’s nose clean,” extends to regulating one’s family and the people around oneself. This is reflected in the focus of the CSOD’s assessment of cadres. Chinese society values “the differential mode of association” 差序格局 (Fei, 1992: 60–70), and close relatives of cadres such as spouses or children are often the most prone to corruption, which in turn leads to the corruption of the entire family.

The CCP’s emphasis on the selection of grassroots cadres may also reflect the importance of this cohort of officials in local governance today. Many scholars have noted the special functions performed by grassroots governments and their cadres (Smith, 2009; Heberer and Schubert, 2012; Ahlers, Heberer, and Schubert, 2019). Since the Eighteenth Party Congress, the CCP has been paying more attention to areas such as environmental protection and poverty alleviation, and these tasks have been carried out using campaign-style enforcement 运动式治理 (Jia and Chen, 2019; Smith, 2018), which has undoubtedly added to the burden on grassroots cadres. More importantly, in contrast to higher-level cadres, those at the grassroots—especially at the section level—have direct contact with the public. The public’s perception of the CCP is therefore formed from their observations of and interactions with these officials. They must be able to effectively put into practice the policies of their superiors and respond to inspections, while also ensuring that the masses are satisfied. Indeed, many grassroots cadres are unable to withstand the pressure and seek transfer away from the front line to relatively unimportant departments, such as research agencies. Their leaders, in addition to worrying about “lifetime accountability” for the appointment of cadres, need capable officials with a “can do” attitude to help them promote important policies such as poverty alleviation. Otherwise, these leaders face punishment for failure.

The selection process for grassroots cadres reflects the institutional operation of China’s “political meritocracy,” and the county organization departments play a very important role in this. Some scholars of China studies in the West have pointed to the way that the party is being “brought back in” to governance in recent years (Brødsgaard and Zheng, 2004), and they have sought to understand the way China is governed from the perspective of the party system. However, the role of the county organization departments in this process is still a comparatively neglected area of scholarship, a deficiency that this article aims to remedy. However, our findings should not be applied to organization departments at higher levels, such as provinces or the center; at those levels, personal networks tend to be more important (Landry, Lü, and Duan, 2018), and the alarm function exercised by organization departments in personnel appointments is not the same. Further research is required in this area before any conclusions can be drawn.

Conclusion

The operations of county-level organization departments have been poorly documented in the past. Our findings in this article come from field surveys carried out in County S in Central China. Since the Eighteenth Party Congress, leaders of party committees have been held accountable for the future failings of any officials they appoint. This makes party committees at all levels more cautious in the process of recruiting cadres and also more in need of information provided by organization departments. Although a county organization department still has to answer to its corresponding county party committee, it does have more influence over cadre recruitment than it did in the past.

The main responsibilities of a county organization department lie in the selection of cadres and the management of cadres’ personnel files. In this article, the appointment of cadres to county-level functional departments is used as an example to discuss how these two tasks are carried out by the organization department of County S. The former task involves the four processes of recommendation, inspection, resolution, and appointment. There is no doubt that, after the CCP’s Eighteenth Congress, county organization departments exercise an alarm function in the cadre selection process. There are seven points in the process at which they can intervene by providing the party committee with information that can prompt it to halt the appointment of incompetent candidates. In addition to this, organization departments play a very important role in the management of cadres’ personnel files; for example, we find that, since the CCP’s Eighteenth Congress, the CSOD has enhanced its work in verifying the accuracy of personnel data.

Finally, the CCP attaches enormous importance to the quality of local governance, which is one reason why the role of the county organization departments has been reinforced. Nowadays, it is grassroots cadres who “bear the burden” (yadanzi 压担子) of implementing the party’s policies. The CCP seems to be using institutional means to develop a meritocracy of sorts at the grassroots level. From the case we have examined in this article, we can identify the rules governing personnel recruitment at the grassroots. However, as mentioned above, our observations cannot be applied to the selection of higher-level cadres, a topic that requires more research.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We thank the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biographies

Wen-Hsuan Tsai 蔡文轩 is a research fellow in the Institute of Political Science, Academia Sinica, Taipei. His main research interests include the political institutions and development of the Chinese Communist Party, comparative politics, and the comparative study of authoritarian regimes. His works have been published in China Journal, China Quarterly, Journal of Contemporary China, Modern China, China Review, China Information, Asian Survey, Journal of East Asian Studies, Problems of Post-Communism, China: An International Journal, and Issues and Studies.

Gang Tian 田刚 is an associate professor at the School of Law, Minzu University of China, Beijing. His main research is on Chinese political development, the system of internal party regulations, and comparative law. His works have been published in China Journal, Journal of Chinese Political Science, and China Information.

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