Integrity management under state hierarchy: controlling corruption in China

In contrast to the early campaign-style anti-corruption strategy based on nationwide uniformity, disparate local integrity initiatives and programs proliferated in China in recent years. Local innovation in controlling corruption and managing government integrity has been encouraged by the central government. Drawing on the author's fieldwork in Guangdong, this chapter investigates the rationale behind the new development and addresses the question of how and why the central leadership has become receptive to local initiatives in cadre management, an area where political conformity was deemed necessary by an authoritarian regime. It suggests that the strategic adjustment testifies to the institutional failure of the earlier anti-corruption regime that manifested in, inter alia, an acute agency loss problem. The emerging approach to integrity management nevertheless has paradoxical institutional roots. It indicates the new thinking of the central authorities on holding local governments responsible for integrity management. However, just as clearly, the adjustment is also driven by the center's concern about losing control and its desire to “manage” government integrity under the state's hierarchy.