Only the Party Manages Cadres: limits of Local People's Congress supervision and reform in China

This article joins the debate on the increasingly consultative nature of Chinese politics by adding the role of the Local People's Congress (LPC). In contrast to previous research on LPCs that emphasizes their increasing importance and improved capacity, this article shows that the central Party leadership, in order to uphold its monopoly of the cadre management system, has reduced LPC standing committees' (LPCSC) influence over cadres. The article analyses the consequences of the People's Congress Standing Committee Supervision Law passed in 2006 and the policy of appointing the first Party secretary as LPCSC chairperson. A case study of the changes over a ten-year period (1998–2009) in a county People's Congress (PC) in Zhejiang illustrates how the change in leadership and the implementation of the Supervision Law effectively stopped previously initiated reforms to strengthen the LPC and crippled the LPCSCs' capacity to supervise government cadres. The article concludes that the policies adopted in order to strengthen Party control over LPCSCs have resulted in a decrease of horizontal accountability and confirm the image of an emerging consultative authoritarian political system.