Jérôme Doyon, Sciences Po & Daniel Koss, Harvard U.

Wednesday 3 May 2023 at 4–5.30pm

Location: in person, Room 139, 25 Bute Gardens, University of Glasgow and online with registration at https://uofglasgow.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0odOuurDsvGNOTEP0C-OemkQQWPzFVq8oH

 

Abstract

In contrast to the well-developed literature on democratic campaigns and party finances, the study of authoritarian party finance stands at its beginning. This paper aims to fill this gap through the study of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) finances. Our goal is to see what we can learn from following the party money and what that tells us about its relationships with the state and with its own membership. No study to our knowledge has analyzed in detail the CCP’s revenue streams and how it spends its money, separately from the state; and this in spite of the increased emphasis in recent years on the collection of party dues from members. We argue that by contrast to what has been argued in other cases, such as the Kuomintang or the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the goal of the development of the party dues system is not to gain financial autonomy from the state but rather to contribute to developing the party own organizational structure as well as cultivating party consciousness among its members. 

Biographies

Jérôme Doyon is a Junior Professor at the Centre for International Relations (CERI) at Sciences Po Paris. His research focuses on Chinese politics with a specific interest in the inner working of the Party-State apparatus and its exportation beyond Chinese borders, as well as elite politics, political youth organizations, and the management of ethnoreligious minorities. His work has appeared in various outlets, such as Political Studies or The China Quarterly, and his most recent book titled Rejuvenating Communism: Youth Organizations and Elite Renewal in Post-Mao China was published by the University of Michigan Press in 2023. 

Daniel Koss is a research scholar and lecturer teaching at Harvard’s Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations. Previously, he held appointments at Academia Sinica in Taipei and at the German Foreign Ministry. Koss works on political parties and their history, with regional expertise in East Asia. His first book was published in 2018 and is entitled Where the Party Rules: The Rank and File of China’s Communist State. Other publications have appeared or are forthcoming in Studies in Comparative International Development, The Journal of Asian Studies, China Brief, China Quarterly, and China: an international journal.

  

The Scottish Centre for China Research Seminar Programme gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the MacFie Bequest.

For more details on the SCCR Seminar Series: https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/socialpolitical/research/sccr/events/

First published: 3 May 2023

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