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Photo of Stefan Brehm

Stefan Brehm

Senior lecturer

Photo of Stefan Brehm

Homophily in the Career mobility of China's Political Elite

Author

  • Sonja Opper
  • Victor Nee
  • Stefan Brehm

Summary, in English

We argue that leadership promotion in China’s political elite relies on homophily for signals of trustworthiness and future cooperative behavior more than on economic performance. We first point to the limitation of the economic performance argument from within the framework of China’s specific M-form state structure, and then we proffer a sociological explanation for why higher-level elites in China rely on homophilous associations in recruiting middle-level elites to the top positions of state. Using a unique dataset covering China’s provincial leaders from 1979 to 2009, we develop a homophily index focusing on joint origin, joint education and joint work experience. We trace personal similarities in these respects between provincial leaders and members of China’s supreme decision-making body, the Politbureau’s Standing Committee. We then provide robust evidence confirming the persisting impact of homophilous associations on promotion patterns in post-reform China.

Department/s

  • Department of Economics
  • Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University

Publishing year

2015

Language

English

Pages

332-352

Publication/Series

Social Science Research

Volume

54

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Elsevier

Topic

  • Economics and Business

Keywords

  • political elite
  • promotion
  • homophily
  • performance
  • China

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0049-089X