Meritocracy or Patronage? Internal Conflicts and the Political Control Over Bureaucracy in the Imperial China 1644-1911 Tianyang Xi¤ Abstract The quality of state bureaucrats is often key for maintaining social stability. This paper ana- lyzes the political mechanism of control over governors in the Qing dynasty. The ethnicity-based patronage favored Manchus within the central government, yet the majority Han officials were instrumental for maintaining social stability. We find that sanctions and promotions for gover- nors were responsive to internal conflicts within their jurisdictions. Moreover, new appointments tended to be drawn from the majority group when there were more internal conflicts nationwide. This pattern of control over bureaucracy suggests a competence-versus-loyalty trade-off, which is echoed by the history of contemporary China. ¤Assistant Professor, the National School of Development, Peking University. [Contact:
[email protected]] I am thankful to Adam Przeworski, Robert Bates, Carles Boix, Jon Eguia, Georgy Egorov, Daniel Esser, John Ferejohn, Sanford Gordon, James Hollyer, Peter Katzenstein, Debin Ma, Michael Munger, Emerson Niou, David Stasavage, Guangzhen Sun, Yang Yao, the participants of APSA annual meeting, and the attendees of seminars at Princeton, Duke, Tsinghua, Shandong, and Fudan Universities for helpful comments and suggestions. 1 1 Introduction The quality of state bureaucrats is key for the thriving of all kinds of political systems. Democracies and dictatorships face similar problems of appointing competent officials and replacing those who fail to do their jobs properly. Moreover, no ruler can rule single-handedly: delegation is inevitable. Even when political power is monopolized, as in the case of the majority of regimes in human history, political elites may need to reach outside their own group to govern effectively.