Conclusion: The Structure Of Authority And Models Of Chinese Bureaucratic Behavior

The above discussion of the role of the research centers was limited to analyzing the impact of these new institutions on information flows within the bureaucracy and the ability of the leadership to adopt and implement coordinated policies. I suggested three ways in which the centers promoted policy coordination: (1) by increasing the leadership's information on policy externalities (through independent research and the pooling of ministry-collected data and analysis, the organizing of interagency discussions of policy choices, and long-term planning procedures) so that coordinated policies could be formulated; (2) by shifting the balance of informal authority between the leadership and the ministries (by diminishing the latter's relative monopoly of expertise) so that coordinated policies could be implemented; and (3) by altering the envi-

ronment of researchers and ministries so as to produce both new capacity and new incentives for coordinating behavior (causing the ministries either to take account independently of the impact of their policy proposals on other policy spheres or to reach accommodation through bargaining with other units).

Although the centers clearly did not eliminate the fragmentation of authority, unlike other institutional changes of the post-Mao era they generally promoted centralized authority, if centralization is measured by the ability of the leadership to adopt and implement coordinated policies. This does not mean that such centralization was sufficient to overcome the fragmenting tendencies produced by the dispersal of resources other than information; most likely it was not. But my analysis should steer scholars away from any simplistic assumption that the post-Mao reforms uniformly altered the structure of authority in favor of subordinate units.

I suggested above that the model of "competitive persuasion" more accurately describes the relationship between the research centers and the top leaders than does either the command or the bargaining model. The research centers' attempts to formulate persuasive arguments about appropriate policy, in competition with other agencies offering alternative advice, fits neither the command model, with its emphasis on lower-level units' obedience to leadership commands, nor the bargaining model, which focuses on exchange and mutual veto power between different levels. Instead, it suggests a political relationship in which personal relations and expert analysis both play a role.

The continuing importance of personal relations for the research centers' ability to persuade top leaders—as well as for their ability to gain cooperation from other units—has been noted several times. Even while Zhao Ziyang was premier, personal relationships were an important element determining the influence of the research centers. As I suggested above, the research centers' authority was largely derivative of their relationship to and influence with the premier; the centers' ability to gain the cooperation of other units depended partly upon this derived authority, but sometimes upon a personal relationship with the head of one of those units.

At the same time, personal relations appear to be only a partial explanation of the centers' influence on decision making. The centers' staff and officials believed that their ability to persuade the premier and other leaders depended greatly upon the quality of the advice they were able to offer. Moreover, fluctuations in the research centers' overall and relative influence, and even their formal existence (such as the decline in influence of the CIS, the expansion and rise in influence of the TERC, and the abolition of the RDRC), are only partly correlated with leadership

change and the politics of Tiananmen. Both Li Peng, who replaced Zhao Ziyang as premier in 1987, and the new Party general secretary, Jiang Zemin, seemingly rely more heavily on other sources of expertise, which they regard as personally loyal and perhaps ideologically more in tune with their policy orientations.^[45] However, according to a former member of the CIS, that center's loss of influence predated both the death of its original director, Huan Xiang, and the removal of Zhao Ziyang as premier; apparently the CIS lost out in bureaucratic competition with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (although the latter reportedly tried, but failed, to have the CIS eliminated during the bureaucratic reshuffling of 1987–88). And although the RDRC is being dismantled, seemingly as a direct result of the politics of Tiananmen, the ETSDRC has steadily expanded its scope and influence and, if anything, seems to have become more powerful after Zhao's removal. The NRCSTD also appears little affected by the events at Tiananmen. The mixture of personal and rational factors underlying the research centers' influence means that the centers' authority has not, and probably will not soon, become highly institutionalized. But the reliance upon expert advice and the use of such advice to counterbalance the authority of individual ministries appears more stable than the influence of any particular institution.

The events at Tiananmen do not invalidate these conclusions about the role of the research centers and similar advisory bodies in promoting policy coordination. They do, however, suggest that we must recognize the limitations of any study of bureaucratic politics for illuminating and predicting the behavior of China's top leaders. In a crisis, those leaders are unlikely to consult either with bureaucrats or with members of their advisory institutions; indeed, even in noncrisis conditions, they may sometimes choose to ignore them. However, in ordinary decision making, bureaucratic considerations loom large, and in the post-Mao period, even after Tiananmen, the distribution of information and expertise is one important factor shaping the nature and outcome of bureaucratic processes and authority.