Crisis, Concept And Actions:the Evolution Of Contemporary Chinese Vertical Political System

From the perspective of institutional evolution, the essay analyzes the process of the initiation, continuation and transformation of the Chinese vertical political institutions. The case study shows that, the evolutionary path of the Chinese vertical political system results from the strong impulse cultivated by the leaders as the main actors from up to the bottom, rather than the product of power struggle. The process mirrors the evolutionary mode concerning not only how the circumstance, structure and behavioral subjects interact, but the special stability as well. It's stability originates from the unitary system in which the central government controls all power of national governance, while the power of local governments stems from the redistribution of the central. In practice, the relationship of administrative subordination represents by the triply jointed mechanisms including organization, interest and responsibility across the vertical governments. The mechanisms are planted in the vertical political institution and maintain its stability.The change of contemporary Chinese vertical political system can be seen as an outcome derived by the evolved conception of political leaders. The evolution of their concept based on changes of their institutional cognition and the external environment stimuli. First of all, the change of their institutional cognition is mainly caused by the crisis in the operation of the system what proves their original concept abnormal. Therefore, The crisis forces the political leaders to carry out institutional change. Second, the stimulation of the external environment increases political leaders' pressure of development. And it forces them to seek institutional change in order to maintain the survival of the country in the fierce international competition. In addition, in the process of institutional change, the key actors will have the impact of existing institutional structures and cognitive experience. Therefore, the central adjusts the contemporary Chinese vertical political system in the framework of the existing system, so that the system change shows the starting characteristics of both the scalability and stability.By comparing the changes of contemporary Chinese political system in different historical stages, we can sum up three mechanisms of the institutional changes:First is the adjustment of the vertical power distribution system. That is, political leaders mobilize the enthusiasm of the central, the local levels and the enterprises by pushing the reform of the distribution of vertical power. But the central insists the principle of "CCP leading the army" and "CCP administrating cadres", they never loosen the command in fields of army and cadre administration. At the same time, the central authorities establish firm controlling network of the identification and division of the tax categories as well as tax base when implementing the system of tax distribution. Similarly, they always hold the veto and intervention power in the process of descending executive powers. Those are precisely the key elements by which the vertical system can't violate the basic framework of unitary system in China. It is beneficial to the accordant operation of the triply jointed mechanisms. Second is the adjustment of the power operation mechanism. Through the historically comparison, this study discovers that the triply jointed mechanisms experienced a process from "rigid operation" to "flexible operation" then "elastic operation with rigidity and flexibility" and finally" standardized operation". The target for the process is to match the changes of the central dominating goals and to make the system releasing the various functions. The last but not least is the institutional complementarities. By reforming the related sub-system or attaching the cohesive system to the old ones, we can make the whole institutional systems work effectively, and avoid the friction and conflict across the different sub-systems which can be triggered by the change of political ecology or a certain system. In general, the evolution of contemporary Chinese political system is a process of adjusting the system by the top-level through the above three mechanisms.