Professionalizing China’s Rural Cadres

Many researchers attribute the Chinese regime’s strong state capacity and resilience to its ability to control its local agents. Less well known, however, is how the state manages to secure compliance from village cadres—rural community leaders who are not state officials but who are directly elected by villagers. This essay explores and assesses how the state has attempted to expand its control over village cadres through a process of top-down “professionalization.” Using a county case study, I demonstrate that the professionalization of village cadres has taken place across four key dimensions: (1) cadre salary, (2) evaluation criteria, (3) office structure, and (4) training workshops. I argue that through the process of professionalization, village cadres have increasingly come to resemble state officials. However, professionalization has been only partially successful in increasing village cadres’ compliance with the state. Most critically, these reforms have failed to establish an adequate reward mechanism for village cadres, who have no opportunity for promotion and are poorly paid. As a result, the state’s ability to control and mobilize village cadres has not significantly improved.