Decentralization and veiled corruption under China's "rule of mandates"

Mayling Birney

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: This paper shows why corruption is especially difficult to detect under China’s system of decentralized authoritarian rule, which I call a “rule of mandates.” Local officials must pursue high priority political targets but have immense discretion over which laws to implement. A relative standard for corruption consequently arises since non-implementation of laws may be mandate-serving or may be corrupt; and determining which requires extra information on why non-implementation occurred. The theory is supported by evidence from original survey and case research on the implementation of the village elections law. I discuss implications for anticorruption efforts, development patterns, and future research.

Keywords: Asia; China; corruption; authoritarianism; decentralization; rule of law (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B14 B24 P2 P3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-01-01
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Published in World Development, 1, January, 2014, 53, pp. 55-67. ISSN: 0305-750X

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