37th Annual Student Research Conference
Technocracy or Political Technocracy?: Position Retention of Chinese Political Elites in the Xi Jinping Era
Evan T. Holway
Dr. Michael Rudy, Faculty Mentor
Since 2012, Xi Jinping and his faction have consolidated their power over the Chinese Communist Party, thus having the power to decide who retains elite positions of political power in China. What characteristics do those political elites who retain their position possess? I use the 21st Century China Center’s CCP Elites Database to perform linear regression and Chi-square tests to determine what characteristics are possessed by elites who retained their position from the 18th Central Committee of the CCP to the 19th Central Committee. I focus on party seniority and educational credentials as explanatory variables in determining the contemporary makeup of the CCP as either a technocracy or political technocracy, controlling for the gender and ethnicity of the political elites. Prior research shows positive relationships between party seniority and educational credentials in Chinese officials obtaining elite positions of power. I find a negative relationship between party seniority and position retention.
Keywords: China, Chinese Communist Party, Chinese politics, Xi Jinping, technocracy, political elite, communist regime, autocracy
Topic(s):Political Science
Chinese
Asian Studies
Presentation Type: Oral Presentation
Session: 303-1
Location: SUB Georgian B
Time: 12:45