Beyond “Bureaucracy”: the Action Logic of Chinese “Cadres” under Role Theory

DOI: https://doi.org/10.62517/jmsd.202412427

Author(s)

Ze Wu

Affiliation(s)

Zhou Enlai School of Government , Nankai University, Tianjin, China

Abstract

Traditional bureaucracy theory is the basic theory of public administration and is widely practiced and developed in Western countries. Bureaucracy emphasizes rules and efficiency, and aims to improve organizational efficiency through the professional division of labor among officials. However, the criticism and revision of bureaucracy in theory continues to this day, and problems such as institutional rigidity and bureaucracy have emerged in practice. The construction of Chinese bureaucratic organizations also refers to bureaucratic theory, but it can maintain a high level of governance effectiveness. The emergence of this phenomenon of "Chinese governance and Western chaos" is due to the fact that the political role of Chinese "cadres" has achieved a transcendence of Western "bureaucrats" from individual action logic to national governance logic. Based on the achievements and shortcomings of existing research, this paper innovatively applies role theory to the comparison of the political roles of cadres and bureaucrats, and gradually constructs a research paradigm with Chinese cadres as the core from the role of cadres, deducing how their role action logic fits the national governance logic, and achieving the improvement of governance effectiveness and transcendence of bureaucrats.

Keywords

Cadres; Bureaucracy; Role Theory; Political Role; Governance Logic

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