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domestic environments.

Roughly speaking, the CMS developed in three stages: In 1949, after the foundation of the PRC, a national CMS was established. During the Cultural Revolution between May 1966 and October 1976, the CMS was disrupted and many its functions disabled. With the launch of the Reform and Opening Policy in 1978, the CMS was revived and aimed at the rationalization and professionalization of the cadre corps.

In 2008, along with the 30th anniversary of reform, People’s Daily published a historical overview on the development of the CMS. The account addresses the evolution of the CMS in the face of socio-economic transformation, and how leadership decisions were translated into the existing structures and the development of new ones. Development is revisited in four phases: (1) 1949-1956, establishment and development; (2) 1957-1966, winding and improvement; (3) 1966-1976, frustration and setback; (4) since 1976, establishment of the order, and reform and opening. This phase is further divided into: (a) 1978-1986, incorporation of Deng Xiaoping's four modernizations; (b) 1987-1999, reform of the guiding ideas, contents and focus of the CMS; (c) 2000, beginning of the overall and deep reform of the CMS. (Li, 1 January 2008)

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In China two organs are responsible for personnel matters: the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security人民资源和社会保障部 (MHRSS)and the Central Organization De-partment (COD). Former is a ministry under the State Council and responsible for policies;

latter is a department of the Secretariat of the CCP 中国共产党中央书记处 that decides over appointments or the nomenklatura of the party.¹⁶

16 Nomenklatura is a list of leadership positions and of those cadres who are suitable for these positions. Party committees at every level have their own lists with positions over which they have the authority to decide.

For a more detailed explanation of the nomenklatura see Burns, John (1989): The Chinese Communist Party’s Nomenklatura System. London: M.E. Sharpe, and Chan, Hon S. (2004): “Cadre Personnel Management in China. The Nomenklatura System 1990-1998.” In The China Quarterly 179, pp. 703-743. A more recent account by Heilmann, Sebastian and Kirchberger, Sarah (2000): “The Chinese Nomenklatura in Transition.”

In China Analysis 1, pp. 1-13. In respect with appointment the organization of posts, it is important to refer to another administrative control function: the bianzhi system. Bianzhi establishes the number of posts in administrative organs, enterprises, and service organizations. For further study refer to Brodsgaard, Kjeld Erik (2002): “Institutional Reform and the Bianzhi System in China.” In The China Quarterly 170, pp. 361-386.

It is the most influential and important organ in personnel matters and a central institution of the CCP. By means of party groups 党

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组 that are installed in state departments and agencies at every administrative level the Party exerts a dominating influence on job assignment decisions. In the past as well as in the pre-sent, the close relation between the two organs has been reflected in personnel overlap. Lead-ing positions in both organs are assigned to party members. ¹⁷

The Personnel Bureau 人事局 was established in 1949 and was replaced by the Ministry of Personnel 人事部 in 1988. In 2008, the Ministries of Labor and Social Security 劳动和社会 保障部 the Ministry of Personnel were concentrated under one ministry, the MHRSS.What this fusion means for the political leverage and influence in personnel decisions is speculative, however it suggests a diminished influence of the government organ and a persistent or even growing power of the party organ, the COD. The personnel overlap in these institutions re-mains.

The CCP has a vital interest in maintaining a certain degree of control and power over per-sonnel administration. This is not only revealed in the institutional setting, but also in the his-torical evolution of the CMS and the continued reform efforts thereof. The establishment of a Civil Service System (CSS) in the 1990s marks an important institutional change in the CMS.

In order to grasp the means and ends of personnel management in China, it is necessary to understand the relationship between the Party and its agents, and the consequences the institu-tional changes had upon them.

By the end of the 1980s, China’s economy had grown considerably and the efficiency of the hitherto cadre management became a focus of discussion among China’s scholarly community.

The rather “modest calls for reform” within the Party (Burns 1989: 745) ultimately found their leading mouthpiece in Zhao Ziyang赵紫阳,¹⁸

17 Yin Weimin 尹蔚民 is currently vice-director of the COD and the MHRSS.

China’s former General Party Secretary, who proposed the creation of a CSS at the 13th Central Party Congress in 1989. Core of his proposal were the dismounting of bureaucracy, a more objective performance appraisal sys-tem, and the retreat of local party committees in the selection and promotion process of ca-dres. Following the 13th Party Congress, preparations for a more modern and reformed CMS began; the newly established MOP proposed a pilot scheme and a set of regulations. Regional and city governments began experimenting with Western civil service techniques. The old system was supposed to be replaced by a modern one with an emphasis on severer selection standards and the formation of administrative skills of cadres. China therefore took much in-terest in European and US civil servant and government employee models, where public

ad-18 Zhao Ziyang was General Secretary of the CCP from November 1, 1987 to 23 June 1989.

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ministration separates politics and state administration. The goal was to create a CSS with Chinese characteristics that applied to the specific needs of China’s political system, the so-cio-economic transformations, and its historical background. This meant also that a certain degree of control of the CCP over the selection and position allocation process was to be maintained.¹⁹

One of Zhao’s central points of criticism concerned the over-concentration of power in cadre management; he thus suggested the disentanglement of personnel power and administrative responsibility 官人与官事脱节. In other words, Zhao recommended a diminished influence of the CCP in the nomenklatura system, that is the selection government officials. The CCP should maintain its control only over the allocation of leadership position, namely to recom-mend candidates to the National People’s Congress and local congresses for election to state office (Burns 1989: 746). This proposition touched the heart of the Party, and thus led to se-vere tensions between the COD and the MOP.

After the downfall of Zhao Ziyang due to the events in 1989, the conservative forces that had been opposing his plans anyway regained power and the reform came to a halt. However, the need to reform personnel administration remained. The project was taken up again after the 3rd Plenary Session of the 14th Party Congress in 1992 on which the establishment of a So-cialist Market and Economy System 社会主义市场经济体制 was proclaimed. One year lat-er, the Provisional Regulations on National Civil Servants国家公务员暂行条例 (later re-ferred to as Provisional Regulations) were adopted. The Provisional Regulations were less ambitious than the draft presented by the MOP in 1989. Tensions within the personnel admin-istration were not evident, since the fundamental relationship between Party and government, and the nomenklatura system were not touched at all (Lam et al. 1996: 786).

The reading of the history of the civil service reform reveals the importance that the CCP gives to personnel management and its control over it. The request for this continuity eventu-ally became statutory law in 2005, when the Civil Servants Law 国务院法律 was promulgat-ed replacing the Provisional Regulations. The law elevatpromulgat-ed the CCP’s institutionalizpromulgat-ed control in personnel management to a new level. It expanded the Party’s role in personnel manage-ment and merged “a statutory civil service law and a non-statutory personnel managemanage-ment

19 The prominence the CSS has taken is also reflected in the rise of a new academic discipline, Public Admin-istration Studies. In general, since the 1980s, Chinese literature on cadre management has covered a wide range of topics. While international experts in the field of China Studies often apply theories of public admin-istration and organizational studies, the Chinese academic discourse covers also approaches of comparative historical institutionalism.

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framework that hold absolute power over both cadres and civil servants” (Chan et al. 2007:

384). The revitalized and unified personnel management system is the CCP’s return to su-premacy and significantly undermined the efforts to establish a relatively independent state CSS. From a Western perspective, these outcomes are considered negative as China’s one-party regime was consolidated and the hopes of many for political reform in China were dis-appointed. However, Chan et al. (2007: 384) point out that Chinese officials consider this landmark combination of politics and administration a positive step toward developing a sta-ble, adaptasta-ble, highly competent, rule-based, and legitimacy-enhancing administration.