Scholars often credit China's bureaucracy with successfully manufacturing and tapping individual career inspirations and life chances for governance, giving rise to a robust organization and a resilient authoritarianism. My research challenges this view by examining how such authoritarianism has persisted in China since the third democratization wave starting in the late 1970s, with a case study of the career trajectories and behavioural decisions of bureaucratic elites in China who had achieved accelerated promotion, using deep interviews and multivariate statistics on an original and randomly sampled dataset of the cadre population whose career timeline corresponds to China's early market transition (1977-2006). Empirically, no prior research has focused on achieving accelerated promotion that measures the speed of mobility towards bureaucratic elite status (deputy-ministerial/provincial level) as the dependent variable to be explained: such mobility rate determines one's later chances to top politics. Findings show that cadres achieved accelerated promotions because they made counter-intuitive choices throughout their careers, against the prevailing social norms (social structural priority) of chasing immediate monetary rewards, but these decisions reflected their capacity to cater to their political structural priority reflected in the bureaucratic promotion logic. Thus, these unconventional yet conservative choices during China's market transition decades set statistically significant impact on their ways to a political promotion fast track. Theoretically, Giddens' structuration theory suggests agency action being shaped by structure also reproduces structure in democracies. My research develops his theory in an authoritarian context, by proving that multiple structures started to emerge in China's reform era, compared to the pre-1977 periods, and thus the significance of agency action does not rest soley on one's capacity to reshape structure but also on one's capacity to choose one structure (political career) over another (more profitable private sector career), within which to engineer his/her own mobility path.

Este trabalho contempla práticas filantrópicas contemporâneas entre a elite paulistana em sua interface com as dinâmicas de segregação urbana observadas nessa cidade. Procura-se investigar as relações que surgem em torno dessas práticas, mostrando que a segregação se caracteriza não somente pelo distanciamento, mas também por complexos jogos de interação cotidiana entre as populações que convivem na metrópole. A pesquisa baseia-se na etnografia de três iniciativas filantrópicas na cidade de São Paulo: um projeto escolar de ensino da língua inglesa, um centro de saúde infantil e um programa de preparação de jovens das elites para atuação no \"terceiro setor\". A atividade filantrópica se define, respectivamente, como \"serviço comunitário\", \"trabalho voluntário\" e ações de \"responsabilidade social\". Na análise dessas três iniciativas investigadas durante o trabalho de campo, destaca-se a tendência da prática filantrópica a passar, ao longo das últimas décadas, por um processo de \"profissionalização\", ou seja, a transição de um modelo baseado nos princípios de \"caridade\" e \"assistencialismo\" para um modelo de \"investimento social\". A reflexão sobre tal processo e sua incorporação por diversos sujeitos pede uma abordagem antropológica que preze as maneiras pelas quais essas redes se constroem e se desenvolvem, traçando conexões e associações entre lugares e influências diversas. / This study explores contemporary philanthropic practices among the São Paulo elite and the ways in which they relate to the dynamics of urban segregation seen in this city. It investigates the relations born of these practices, in support of the hypothesis that segregated landscapes are characterized not by the absence of relations but by complex dynamics of daily interaction between different urban populations. The study is based on an ethnography of three philanthropic initiatives in São Paulo: an English language teaching project in a private school, a children\'s health centre and a programme designed to prepare young individuals from the city\'s elite to develop activities in the third sector. In these three projects, philanthropy is defined, respectively, as \"community service\", \"voluntary work\" and \"social responsibility\". In its analysis of these initiatives, this study identifies a growing trend over recent years towards the \"professionalization\" of philanthropic practice, presented in the field of philanthropy as the evolution of a \"charity\" or \"assistance\" type model towards one based on the concept of \"social investment\". The investigation of this process and its incorporation into the practices of a diversity of social actors calls for an anthropological approach that emphasizes the connections and associations between diverse networks of people and places.

Este trabalho contempla práticas filantrópicas contemporâneas entre a elite paulistana em sua interface com as dinâmicas de segregação urbana observadas nessa cidade. Procura-se investigar as relações que surgem em torno dessas práticas, mostrando que a segregação se caracteriza não somente pelo distanciamento, mas também por complexos jogos de interação cotidiana entre as populações que convivem na metrópole. A pesquisa baseia-se na etnografia de três iniciativas filantrópicas na cidade de São Paulo: um projeto escolar de ensino da língua inglesa, um centro de saúde infantil e um programa de preparação de jovens das elites para atuação no \"terceiro setor\". A atividade filantrópica se define, respectivamente, como \"serviço comunitário\", \"trabalho voluntário\" e ações de \"responsabilidade social\". Na análise dessas três iniciativas investigadas durante o trabalho de campo, destaca-se a tendência da prática filantrópica a passar, ao longo das últimas décadas, por um processo de \"profissionalização\", ou seja, a transição de um modelo baseado nos princípios de \"caridade\" e \"assistencialismo\" para um modelo de \"investimento social\". A reflexão sobre tal processo e sua incorporação por diversos sujeitos pede uma abordagem antropológica que preze as maneiras pelas quais essas redes se constroem e se desenvolvem, traçando conexões e associações entre lugares e influências diversas. / This study explores contemporary philanthropic practices among the São Paulo elite and the ways in which they relate to the dynamics of urban segregation seen in this city. It investigates the relations born of these practices, in support of the hypothesis that segregated landscapes are characterized not by the absence of relations but by complex dynamics of daily interaction between different urban populations. The study is based on an ethnography of three philanthropic initiatives in São Paulo: an English language teaching project in a private school, a children\'s health centre and a programme designed to prepare young individuals from the city\'s elite to develop activities in the third sector. In these three projects, philanthropy is defined, respectively, as \"community service\", \"voluntary work\" and \"social responsibility\". In its analysis of these initiatives, this study identifies a growing trend over recent years towards the \"professionalization\" of philanthropic practice, presented in the field of philanthropy as the evolution of a \"charity\" or \"assistance\" type model towards one based on the concept of \"social investment\". The investigation of this process and its incorporation into the practices of a diversity of social actors calls for an anthropological approach that emphasizes the connections and associations between diverse networks of people and places.