Political Selection Institutions and Policy Performance: Evidence from China

Political selection institutions in non-democracies are usually conceptualized as mechanisms to co-opt competent agents for regime survival. Departing from this common emphasis, this article highlights their linkage function between informal politics and policy outcomes. Using multilevel modeling and error correction models, hypotheses on the determinants and implications of formal political selection rules are tested. Drawn from an original dataset of political selection rules in China, this analysis finds that coalitions with particular policy priorities strive to achieve desired policy outcomes through shaping formal political selection institutions. The geographic variation in specific features of the political selection rules is primarily driven by coalitional politics. In addition, the effect of policy performance on local leaders’ promotion prospects is not uniform but conditioned on the political selection rules. Under such incentive arrangements, local leaders are found to expand government spending in the policy area prioritized in formal political selection rules. These findings advance our understanding of the endogenous political nature of political selection rules and the relations between informal institutions and policy performance.