Abstract:In western countries, political parties are the key actors in the political life after the building of modern state, while Party building is strongly interacted with state building in late developing countries. Since Sun Yat-sen put forward the plan of “building the modern state with the Party”, political party has become the driving force of China’s state building. Especially, the Communist Party of China plays the leading role of state building in modern China. This paper analyzes the unique approach of the CPC to drive state building through Party building since the reform and opening up, and takes party recruitment as an example to examine the mechanism of how Party building promotes state building through elite selection, political co-optation and national identity. By combining official data with five national representative surveys from 1993 to 2015, this paper finds that CPC adopted a “supply-oriented” and “adaptive” Party recruitment strategy during the period of reform and opening up, and adjusted recruitment strategy to adapt to social transformation. The adaptive recruitment strategy results in the dynamics of social roots of Party members over time, and the shaping of regime trust, political capacity, and national identity. This strategy not only achieves the goal of Party building by improving the advancement and representativeness of the Party, but also drives state building through recruiting elites for the state, social integration and national identity.
孟天广 王 烨. 国家治理现代化的“新叙事”:转型中国的党建与国家建设[J]. 华中师范大学学报(人文社会科学版), 2020, 59(6): 1-12.
Meng Tianguang Wang Ye. “New Narrative” of State Governance Modernization:Party Building and State Building in Transitional China. journal1, 2020, 59(6): 1-12.