Victor Shih (San Diego)

If an authoritarian leader, in this case Mao, had wanted to maximize the party’s power vis-à-vis society and external enemies, one would have thought he would have promoted highly capable cadres with rich experience to be part of the elite ruling coalition of China. Instead, Mao and Deng toward the last ten years of their rules came to favor either very junior or historically tainted officials, whom I call coalitions of the weak. Cadres with whom they had shared decades of experience in revolutionary struggle or seasoned cadres from a younger generation, in contrast, were either purged or forced into early retirement, to the extent that Mao and Deng could have orchestrated it. This was extraordinary especially in the 1970s, when so many revolutionary veterans were still in their 60s and in relatively good health. I first introduce the logic of purging experienced revolutionaries in favor of the coalition of the weak, who did not have the capacity to challenge the incumbent leader. I then apply the theory to shed new light on the political history of the Mao and Deng periods, as well as contemporary development in China.

Victor Shih is an associate professor of political economy and has published widely on the politics of Chinese banking policies, fiscal policies and exchange rates. He was the first analyst to identify the risk of massive local government debt, and is the author of “Factions and Finance in China: Elite Conflict and Inflation.” Prior to joining UC San Diego, Shih was a professor of political science at Northwestern University and former principal for The Carlyle Group. Shih is currently engaged in a study of how the coalition-formation strategies of founding leaders had a profound impact on the evolution of the Chinese Communist Party. He is also constructing a large database on biographical information of elites in China..

12.06.2017 | 18:00

Neubau "Holzlaube", Room 2.2058