‘Old brooms can still sweep’: the logic of furthering CPC’s centralized system

Abstract This article puts the power centralization drive of the CPC since 2012 into perspective by going back to the Party’s history. By employing the retrospective governance studies approach, it singles out three cases in the CPC’s history in which top Party leaders chose to reinforce the CPC’s centralized system even when the Party had made strides in the previous stage, including creating the Instruction Request and Work Report System in 1948, adjusting Party-government Relations in 1953 and prioritizing top-level design since the 18th Party Congress in 2012. Based on a detailed analysis and comparison of the background, process and repercussions of furthering the CPC’s centralized system in the three cases, this article concludes that top Party leaders chose to further strengthen the CPC’s centralized system even when the Party was making strides in its cause primarily because of their concerns about the negative influences, real or imaginary, of the changing environment on the organizational integrity of the Party. By demonstrating the significance of CPC’s Leninist heritage in enabling its resilience, the present analysis broadens the scope of authoritarian resilience studies.