Reassessing the Quality of Government in China

48 Pages Posted: 26 Nov 2016 Last revised: 9 May 2017

See all articles by Margaret Boittin

Margaret Boittin

Osgoode Hall Law School

Greg Distelhorst

University of Toronto, Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources; University of Toronto, Rotman School of Management

Francis Fukuyama

Stanford University - Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

Date Written: November 23, 2016

Abstract

How should the quality of government be measured across disparate national contexts? This study develops a new approach using an original survey of Chinese civil servants and a comparison to the United States. We surveyed over 2,500 Chinese officials on two organizational features of their bureaucracies: meritocracy and individual autonomy. They report greater meritocracy than U.S. federal employees in almost all American agencies. China's edge is smaller in autonomy. Differences between the U.S. and China diminish, but do not disappear, after adjusting for respondent demographics. The meritocracy gap is also robust to excluding the Chinese respondents most likely to be affected by social desirability biases. Our findings contrast with numerous indices of good government that rank the U.S. far above China. They highlight an opportunity to improve quality of government indices by incorporating surveys of political insiders.

Keywords: governance indicators, quality of government, China, bureaucracy, authoritarian politics

Suggested Citation

Boittin, Margaret and Distelhorst, Greg and Fukuyama, Francis, Reassessing the Quality of Government in China (November 23, 2016). MIT Sloan Research Paper No. 5181-16, MIT Political Science Department Research Paper No. 2016-38, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2875244 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2875244

Margaret Boittin

Osgoode Hall Law School ( email )

4700 Keele Street
Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3
Canada
416-736-5349 (Phone)

Greg Distelhorst (Contact Author)

University of Toronto, Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources ( email )

HOME PAGE: http://www.gregdistelhorst.com

University of Toronto, Rotman School of Management

Francis Fukuyama

Stanford University - Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies ( email )

Stanford, CA 94305
United States

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