Elite Power Competition and Corruption Investigation in China: A Case Study

Abstract

This article uses an investigation-trigger framework to explain the process that stimulates investigations of corruption in China, which has been treated more as a black box in the past. Reviewing China’s current anticorruption system, we argue that local party leaders’ decisions directly trigger corruption investigations, and that power competition between political elites is a major catalyst of the trigger. Moreover, drawing upon rarely accessible documentation and interviews addressing the successive downfall of two public security bureau chiefs in City H, we identify two channels through which the investigation-trigger catalyst works: the diminished patronage of corrupt officials after patron turnovers, and government insiders’ unconventional provocation of political opponents. The cases analyzed in this article also show that outside intervention may rupture the local protection of corruption and facilitate investigations. This finding supports the 2012 reform of China’s corruption control system.