A new study suggests how to improve the performance of bureaucrats
Is China’s current leader, Xi Jinping, surrounded by good officials? Last year he stacked the Politburo Standing Committee, the top leadership body, with loyalists who are unlikely to challenge him. But lower down, China’s government is designed in a way that could be used to discourage sycophancy.
Each level of government has two heads: the person in charge of the local Communist Party committee, called the party secretary, and an administrative leader, such as a township chief. Because officials could potentially be evaluated by either, this could be a safeguard against sycophancy. In a study to be published this month, researchers led by Alain de Janvry of the University of California, Berkeley, divided 3,785 entry-level civil servants into two groups. In one, they were told which of the two leaders would be evaluating them. In the other, the identity of the evaluator was kept secret. As one might expect, those in group one tried to please the evaluator, choosing tasks that were more important and observable to them.
What if it is not clear who to flatter? In the second group the disparity in scores disappeared. These bureaucrats were assessed to be more productive. Their colleagues thought more of them, too. The authors observed a significant “performance gap” between group one and group two. Ordinary Chinese have rising expectations of officialdom. If China wants to control sycophancy and improve the performance of bureaucrats, this study suggests leaving them in the dark about who is evaluating them. At the highest level of government, though, that’s not possible. The seven members of the Standing Committee know exactly whom to flatter.
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