Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

Despite almost 30 years of reform, the Chinese state’s functioning continues to revolve around the role of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which suffuses the entire state apparatus, providing it with leadership, purpose and strategy. The party has a range of tools at its disposal to maintain its grip over government, but the key component of continued Leninist supervision is its control over the careers of the officials (cadres) that populate the government, public services, state-owned enterprises, the judiciary, the arms of representative government (people’s congresses and political consultative conferences) and indeed the party apparatus itself. This study interrogates the efforts to use cadre training to standardize, modernize and sanitize the practice and ethos of administration. Cadres, while they continue to be bound by the ideology and practice prescribed by Leninist party discipline, should also become modern, competent managers of increasingly complex organizations. Interviews were conducted with students, teachers and administrators, along with state and communist party officials. These were fully transcribed in Chinese and personal names of informants have been removed from all transcripts and notes. The collection consists of 85 interview transcripts in Chinese and 9 interview notes in English. Further information is available from the ESRC Award web page.

Main Topics:

The main topics include:contemporary Chinaadministrationpoliticspolitical party schools Chinese Communist Partycadre training

Convenience sample

Face-to-face interview