The politics of consultative authoritarianism : bureaucratic competition, deliberation and responsiveness in China
department or school: Arts, Faculty of
department or school: Political Science, Department of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Kornreich, Yoel
issued: 2021-07-31T07:00:00Z
issued: 2019
related degree: Doctor of Philosophy - PhD
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: This dissertation, which consists of two separate but related components, examines public consultation in authoritarian regimes, with a focus on China, where expert consultation is now a standard procedure in the drafting process of major policies. While expert consultation is ubiquitous, not all episodes of expert participation display high-quality deliberation. In the majority of cases, the bureaucracy recruits a cohort of advisors espousing similar positions and instructs them to draft a unified blueprint while constraining debate. In other cases, however, the procedure is highly deliberative, as the government enlists experts with diverse persuasions, and permits them to produce parallel blueprints while also encouraging debate. What accounts for variation in the design of these consultative procedures? I argue that the degree of intra-elite competition shapes expert consultation processes. In cases of fierce bureaucratic conflict, at different stages during the policymaking process, bureaucratic actors who perceive themselves as weak opt for the expansion of the consultation procedure. The end result of this process is the inclusion of experts representing a wide spectrum of opinions. However, in cases of bureaucratic consensus, government officials have fewer incentives to either diversify or expand the roster of advisors. As a result, experts’ consultation is likely to become insipid. To test this theory, the dissertation analyzes the drafting processes of two cases of expert participation, the drafting of China’s Healthcare Reform (2009) and Education Reform (2010). In the second component of the dissertation, I study authoritarian responsiveness to consultative input originating from grassroots groups. In 2008, the Chinese government unveiled a blueprint for healthcare reform, inviting the public to post their opinions online. Having collected 27,899 online comments, the government subsequently published a revised draft. I present a statistical analysis bas…
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/70919
note: THE POLITICS OF CONSULTATIVE AUTHORITARIANISM: BUREAUCRATIC COMPETITION, DELIBERATION AND RESPONSIVENESS IN CHINA by Yoel Kornreich B.A., University of Toronto, 2005 M.A., The University of British Columbia, 2009 M.A., The University of British Columbia, 2011 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF Doctor of Philosophy in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Political Science) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) June 2019 © Yoel Kornreich, 2019 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the dissertation entitled: THE POLITICS OF CONSULTATIVE AUTHORITARIANISM: BUREAUCRATIC COMPETITION, DELIBERATION AND RESPONSIVENESS IN CHINA submitted by Yoel Kornreich in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science Examining Committee: Alan M. Jacobs Supervisor Yves Tiberghien Supervisory Committee Member Mark Warren Supervisory Committee Member Lisa Sandstrom University Examiner Fu Qiang University Examiner Additional Supervisory Committee Members: Supervisory Committee Member Supervisory Committee Member iii Abstract This dissertation, which consists of two separate but related components, examines public consultation in authoritarian regimes, with a focus on China, where expert consultation is now a standard procedure in the drafting process of major policies. While expert consultation is ubiquitous, not all episodes of expert participation display high-quality deliberation. In the majority of cases, the bureaucracy recruits a cohort of advisors espousing similar positions and instructs them to draft a unified blueprint while constraining debate. In other cases, however, the procedure is highly deliberative, as the government enlists experts with diverse persuasions, and permits them to produce parallel blueprints while also encouraging debate. What accounts for vari…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2019-09
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0379761
language: eng
degree discipline: Political Science
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/70919