Does China Care About Rule of Law and Good Governance? Administrative Litigation and Elite Promotion in the PRC

In this paper, we propose that despite a dearth of democracy, authoritarian regimes may still prioritize good governance and rule of law at least in so much as it serves their ends. We find support for this idea by examining rule of law measures in predicting top-level promotions in such regimes. Existing theories of promotions in authoritarian regimes have either emphasized promotions based on factional allegiance or economic growth. While these are probably important factors that an authoritarian regime considers when promoting subordinates, governance that maintains social order is the foundation of authoritarian rule. We examine China, an ideal test case for this hypothesis. The results of our test indicate that provincial Chinese leaders have been promoted based partly on rule of law concerns, a result that has significant implications for theories of authoritarian regime behavior.