Is Xi Jinping’s anticorruption campaign genuinely fighting corruption, or does it serve to expand Xi’s power? This “hunt for tigers and flies” is second to none in the history of the Communist Party of China. In the first 29 months of Xi’s tenure, 104 “tigers” – corrupt cadres at or above vice-provincial/ministerial level – have been confirmed of being brought down in the campaign, including 4 national leaders. It is Xi’s first sweep of his new broom and tells a story more than anticorruption itself. This thesis studies the early stage of Xi’s campaign against corruption from November 2012 to March 2015 from quantitative and network perspectives and illustrates the political dynamics that drive anticorruption in a period when the new autocrat consolidates his power. First, the thesis examines the temporal and geographical/functional distribution of tigers and concludes that it is a thorough campaign fueled by the autocrat’s increase of power. The process of Xi Jinping’s consolidating power pushes through anticorruption. Second, analysis of the tiger succession shows that Xi Jinping does not often apply outsider succession to fill the vacancies by his own loyalists. It suggests that the anticorruption campaign does not directly expand his power by personnel appointment. Third, this thesis draws a colleague network of the fallen tigers and uses centrality measurement to identify factional structure in the sociogram. Network analysis helps find out whether Xi Jinping takes advantage of the tiger hunt to strike down his enemies and, if he does, who he targets at. It turns out that there are factional groups that Xi cracks down, and the purge creates a favorable climate for Xi’s transcendence from a first-among-equals leader in power-sharing arrangements to an unchallengeable autocrat.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:CHENGCHI/G0101252022 |
| Creators | 李嘉, Li, Jia |
| Publisher | 國立政治大學 |
| Source Sets | National Chengchi University Libraries |
| Language | 英文 |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Rights | Copyright © nccu library on behalf of the copyright holders |
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