American Political Science Review
- American Political Science Review / Volume 105 / Issue 01 / February 2011, pp 27-45
- Copyright © American Political Science Association 2011
- DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0003055410000626 (About DOI), Published online: 23 February 2011
Research Article
The Tragedy of the Nomenklatura: Career Incentives and Political Radicalism during China's Great Leap Famine
JAMES KAI-SING KUNGa1 c1 and SHUO CHENa1 c2
a1 Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Abstract
A salient feature of China's Great Leap Famine is that political radicalism varied enormously across provinces. Using excessive grain procurement as a pertinent measure, we find that such variations were patterned systematically on the political career incentives of Communist Party officials rather than the conventionally assumed ideology or personal idiosyncrasies. Political rank alone can explain 16.83% of the excess death rate: the excess procurement ratio of provinces governed by alternate members of the Central Committee was about 3% higher than in provinces governed by full members, or there was an approximate 1.11‰ increase in the excess death rate. The stronger career incentives of alternate members can be explained by the distinctly greater privileges, status, and power conferred only on the rank of full members of the Central Committee and the “entry barriers” to the Politburo that full members faced.
Correspondence:
c1 James Kai-sing Kung is Professor, Division of Social Science, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong (sojk@ust.hk).
c2 Shuo Chen is a PhD candidate, Division of Social Science, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong (chenshuo@ust.hk).
Footnotes
We are most grateful for the guidance and helpful suggestions provided by APSR Coeditor Daniel Treisman in the course of revising this article. We also thank three anonymous reviewers of this journal, as well as Tom Bernstein, Jennifer Gandhi, Jean Oi, Warren Sun, Andrew Walder, and David Zweig, for their useful comments and suggestions on previous drafts. We alone are responsible for any remaining errors.
