Victor C. Shih - Coalitions of the Weak (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics)

Coalitions of the Weak

For the first time since Mao, a Chinese leader may serve a lifetime tenure. Xi Jinping may well replicate Maos successful strategy to maintain power. If so, what are the institutional and policy implications for China? Victor C. Shih investigates how leaders of one-party autocracies seek to dominate the elite and achieve true dictatorship, governing without fear of internal challenge or resistance to major policy changes. Through an in-depth look at late-Mao politics informed by thousands of historical documents and data analysis, Coalitions of the Weak uncovers Maos strategy of replacing seasoned, densely networked senior officials with either politically tainted or inexperienced ones. The book further documents how a decentralized version of this strategy led to two generations of weak leadership in the Chinese Communist Party, creating the conditions for Xis rapid consolidation of power after 2012.

Victor C. Shih is Ho Miu Lam Chair Associate Professor in China and Pacific Relations at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of Factions and Finance in China: Elite Conflict and Inflation (2007) and the editor of Economic Shocks and Authoritarian Stability: Duration, Institutions and Financial Conditions (2020).

Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics

General Editor

Kathleen Thelen Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Associate Editors

Catherine Boone London School of Economics

Thad Dunning University of California, Berkeley

Anna Grzymala-Busse Stanford University

Torben Iversen Harvard University

Stathis Kalyvas University of Oxford

Margaret Levi Stanford University

Melanie Manion Duke University

Helen Milner Princeton University

Frances Rosenbluth Yale University

Susan Stokes Yale University

Tariq Thachil University of Pennsylvania

Erik Wibbels Duke University

Series Founder

Peter Lange Duke University

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For my teacher, mentor, and friend, Roderick MacFarquhar

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Acknowledgments

This book is the culmination of over two decades of puzzling, research, and writing, all triggered by an oft-repeated observation of Professor Roderick MacFarquhar. In class discussions, which I had the privilege of being a part of, he observed that after the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, Mao did not have to worry about the bulk of the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA), Lin Biao being the exception of course. Although at first I did not think much of this truism, the more I studied the comparative politics of authoritarian regimes, the more I found this puzzling. In other authoritarian countries, control over the military was rarely as unproblematic as the case in the late-Mao years, especially after the Lin Biao incident. The light finally turned on for me when I coded the data on the CCP elite in 2008 and found that Fourth Front Army (FFA) veterans were systematically placed in powerful positions in the PLA during the Cultural Revolution. After writing up the initial results in 2011, I presented the paper on the FFA to Professor MacFarquhar, who assured me that this finding was novel and strongly encouraged me to continue down this line of inquiry. This gave me the courage and perseverance to continue with this project, even through my sojourn into the private sector and transition to University of California, San Diego (UCSD). On top of his encouragement, so many aspects of this project were built on his magisterial works on the origin and history of the Cultural Revolution. Although he read through key chapters of this book, one of my greatest regrets is that he passed away before I could give him the full manuscript for review. This book owes its existence to the intellectual foundation he had built and to his encouragement.