Patronage, tournament, and political reward: Evidence from the model county party secretary in China

Abstract

AbstractThis study focuses on the honor of Model County Party Secretary, a prestigious award bestowed by the Communist Party of China to recognize exceptional county party secretaries. Specifically, we investigate how county party secretaries' patronage networks with senior politicians and their relative economic performance compared to other political contestants can impact their likelihood of winning this honor. We collect demographic and biographic data on a sample of over 2000 county party secretaries from various official documents and online sources. Instrumental variable estimations show that, in line with tournament theory, an increase in county party secretaries' relative economic performance enhances their likelihood of receiving the honor. However, county leaders' patronage networks with senior politicians negatively moderate the estimated impact of economic performance. This finding contradicts the inference drawn from patronage theory but supports the conjecture that senior politicians may exploit patronage networks to politically suppress subordinate leaders and prevent political uncertainty.