"Networks of coercion: Military ties and civilian leadership challenges in China" - by CWP alum Tyler Jost
Civilian-led coups are one of the most common routes to losing power in autocracies. How do authoritarian leaders secure themselves from civilian leadership challenges? We argue that autocrats differentiate civilian rivals in part by their social ties to the military. To reduce the threat of coups, leaders buy off civilians with strong military ties by promoting them to lower-tier institutions—but isolate these same civilians by denying them promotion to higher-tier institutions that afford opportunities to challenge the leader. We introduce an original data set of over 117,000 postings of 34,140 Chinese military officers and map ties between the entire civilian and military elite between 1927 and 2014. We find that civilian leaders with strong ties to the military improve prospects for promotion to the Central Committee, but degrade the likelihood of promotion to the apex Politburo Standing Committee, particularly for civilians outside the leader's social network.
First published: 07 April 2025
https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12971
Tyler Jost is Assistant Professor of Political Science, International & Public Affairs and Watson Institute Assistant Professor of China Studies. His research focuses on national security decision-making, bureaucratic politics, and Chinese foreign policy. Dr. Jost’s current book project examines domestic institutions designed to decide and coordinate national security policy, such as the U.S. National Security Council. Dr. Jost completed his doctoral degree in the Department of Government at Harvard University. He has held postdoctoral fellowships in the International Security Program at the Kennedy School of Government, as well as in the China and the World Program at Columbia University. His research has been supported by the Smith Richardson Foundation, the U.S. Institute of Peace, and the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies.
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