Provincial elite in post-Mao China

The study analyzes 274 provincial leaders' biographies, coding four sets of information on the provincial elite. They include (1) age, sex, nationality, and provincial origins; (2) educational attainment; (3) date of joining the party, major career patterns; and (4) previous work experience. This study argues that the new generation of provincial elite that came to power in the 1980s represents a growing localism in elite recruitment and the emergence of a bureaucratic-technocratic leadership at the provincial level. Career bureaucrats and technocrats are likely to be powerful political forces in provincial politics for the foreseeable future. -from Author