| By utilizing New Institutional Economics, especially comparative transaction costs theory, this research examines whether and how the Chinese provincial legislatures (Provincial People's Congresses, PPCs) have experienced a steady institutionalization and expansion of functions in the process of economic development during the last fifteen years.;First, after a decade of oblivion, the PPCs evolved to well-structured and well-staffed institutions judged by their autonomy, institutional development, personnel competency, staff support, and internal rules. Second, the institutionalization of the PPCs displayed uneven development among their different levels of organizations. The institutions closer to their core leadership achieved more power. As more Communist Party members entered into the PPC leadership and crowded out the deputies from the small democratic parties and those without party affiliation, the Chairmen Groups have fully integrated with the local elite. In contrast, the plenary sessions in which the ordinary deputies participate had not gained much power. Consequently, the PPCs had turned into new hierarchies serving well the purpose of political integration and control, replacing the party cells to organize the people at grassroots. Third, the PPCs have expanded their economic functions, for example, engaging in creating markets, maintaining the economic order, controlling the externalities, and protecting the public goods, by making economic laws, inspecting the law enforcement, and supervising the governmental and judicial organizations. Furthermore, they became important parts of the developmental state in steering the economic transition from a communist planned economy to a market economy. Fourth, under the pretext of economic development, the PPCs have aggressively asserted their powers in relation to the executive branch, the party organization, the judicial branch, and even the central organizations. They have become major players in the provincial decision-making process. As a result of the political contestation within the elite and decentralization, the Chinese traditional hierarchical mode of governance has given way to a hybrid mode of governance, namely a mixture of hierarchical control and bargaining relations.;This dissertation concludes that legislatures are capable of pursuing institutional building under the context of economic transformation, and that the market impulse could be a major driving force for political institutionalization. |
