China's Bureaucratic Slack: Material Inducements and Decision-Making Risks among Chinese Local Cadres

In recent years, Party leaders have expressed concern about "bureaucratic slack," or shirking, by local government officials. This article investigates the reasons for the emergence of bureaucratic slack in China's political system. It verifies two popular hypotheses, namely, reduced material inducements and increased risk. Using a unique national survey of 1,789 local cadres, we confirm both hypotheses. Our survey also reveals differences across groups of local cadres. We find bureaucratic slack among lower-ranked cadres to be caused mainly by the lack of material inducements, while higher-ranked officials are more discouraged by increased risks. We conducted follow-up fieldwork to examine in greater depth why each cohort responded differently to the Xi administration's administrative reforms and anticorruption drives.