I should point out that I find that these rankings tell much, much more about the World Bank than about China. One thing that I'd love to see is someone official in China do a ranking of countries in the world. I'm sure it would be very different from the World Bank's, but I'd be interested to see *how* it's different. You can also extend this to individuals. If I ask you to take all the countries in the world and rank them on governance, I can really find out a lot about you.
I thought it would be fun to come up with some indicators that a Chinese official might use to rank the governance of a country, and how those indicators might apply to the US. I think we can all concede that any government official would choose indicators that are important to the governance of his or her own country. I'm making a broad generalization here, of course, but if a Chinese official were to devise a governance ranking system I think it would be designed around two major indicators: 1) stability and 2) the central government's ability to implement policy.
As to stability, China has proven much more stable over the past 30 years than many countries of Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe, several of which have had violent, military, or major but peaceful transfers of power in that same time frame. And that is impressive on China's part. But when we start using the stability indicator to compare China with representative democracies we get caught on some snags.
Sure, gerrymandering has lessened power shifts in the US legislature, but every 4-8 years there is a transfer of power between individuals and/or political parties in the US executive branch. With its 30 (plus, if you're willing, but I wouldn't be willing to go beyond the Gang of Four to Deng transfer) years of peaceful rule, 5 year plans and its scientific socialism, it seems that Beijing and the CPC would look down upon this level of instability in the US. One year we're waging a holy war against an Axis of Evil, and the next we're all but ignoring those nations with whom we have some differences. Beijing might back down on some laws, but such major swings in national policy seem like they would be unacceptable. This isn't to say that the Party hasn't proven remarkable at reinventing itself, but it is still the same Party.
Beijing's ability to implement national policy is a work in progress. China's status as a de facto federalist state is an impediment. The other impediment is that China is physically large, there are a lot of people to rule over, and the level of corruption suggests transparency issues in the implementation of policy from Beijing to the provinces down to the local. I would say that Beijing has certainly done nothing but improve in this indicator, though. Major evidence is the rooting out and prosecution of that corruption.
The US is a de jure federalist state (though ludicrous interpretations of Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce grind away at the de jure status), and conflict between the federal sovereign and the state sovereigns was designed into the Constitution. Additionally, it is confusing as to who or what exactly is the US sovereign and who or what is trying to implement policy. The head of the executive branch? The head of the legislative branch? Which part of the legislature? And the publicly reported fractures within parties makes this hard to figure out even when one party controls all three. Again, this frustration of a powerful central government was designed into the Constitution.
While China might consider the ability of the central government to implement policy an important indicator of governance, its importance is less clear when measured in a state such as the US where our Constitution is designed around limiting the power of the central government.
When we take a look at the organizations that the World Bank compiled their governance indicators from, we find that they are all "Western" or Western-dominated (yeah, I'm looking at you Development Banks). I don't know how much we could actually learn about these institutions from these rankings other than that they intentionally or inadvertently embrace indicators that are important to the governance of their home countries systems, predominantly representative democracies. And the governments of representative democracies need different attributes to govern well than do oligarchies. Sort of a transparency and accountability thing versus a stability and control thing. Though I am biased in favor of Aristotle I'm not trying to pass a value judgment, and I think it would be difficult to argue that the CPC is becoming a less effective Philosophical Oligarchy.
5 comments:
A lot of it depends what the indicator is for. If it is public indicator that is designed to give a country "bragging rights" then of course they would look for things that would make the country look good. If it's a private indicator designed to give the official some idea of how to govern, they'd come up with something very different.
For any public indicator, the Chinese government would probably use GDP growth and just GDP growth. I'm actually curious what officials in China would use in their private indicators. It may not be something that China is very good in. One reason that the Chinese Communist Party has survived is that no matter what they say in public, behind closed doors, Party members can be extremely critical so it would be interesting to see what they think.
If you can silent all oppositions without considering human rights and legallity issues, or any pressure from the international community, and have complete control over the media. I think you can make any political party stable until Judgement Day!
There are plenty of violents in China, you just don’t know about them that’s all.
Please do come to China, but don't be a tourist and just stay in the big cites, actually live amongst the people in the rural areas and you'll see the real China - up close.
Ben,
Most recent instance of not being able to silence the opposition and give in to the demands of the people? Green Dam.
There are plenty of counter-examples, but Beijing is a) not as all powerful as you seem to think they are, and b) incredibly successful at maintaining stability in the face of the opposition you speak of. There are plenty of examples of other authoritarian regimes out there that are much more brutal in silencing opposition and in information control, but they are not as long-lived as nor are they as successful (let's measure success as rising the masses out of poverty, and improving health and education) as Beijing.
I grew up in the woods with guns, dirtbikes, and dogs. Rural is where I go to relax. Cities are where I like to get stressed out.
Actually you can't. The problem that any one party state has is that you then get people arguing within the party. You tend to get factions within the party that then cause it to lose power.
You can deal with this problem (and some parties have) by having a "fearless leader." The trouble come in when "fearless leader" dies. You can try to stay in power by bribing people both inside and outside the party, but if the economy stagnates then you don't have the money to bribe everyone you need to bribe.
The reason the Chinese government takes the concept of "law" very seriously is that "law" is a way of regulating and managing conflict *within* in the Party. The other thing is that the Chinese government stays in power basically by bribing people not to revolt, and the ability to pay those bribes requires a functioning economy.
twofish,
You just got me thinking. The Chinese haven't had a Cult of Personality since Mao. Deng was successfully in the shadows while the fearless leader was the Party which is often confused with China itself. The fearless leader of China is the Party and China. That probably won't die for a while.
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