EAI Fellows Program Working Paper Series No.42
 

Author

Patrick Koellner is director of the Institute of Asian Studies, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies. He is also a professor of political science at the University of Hamburg.

Email: patrick.koellner@giga-hamburg.de. Internet: http://staff.en.giga-hamburg.de/koellner

Abstract

Analyses of the shape and functioning of systems of political rule need to address informal institutions, which exist alongside and can relate to formal institutions in various ways. In this paper, I first discuss some analytical foundations of the study of such institutions. I then suggest that a focus on political regimes — understood as the configuration of formal and informal institutions shaping and reflecting the access to and the exercise of political power — can be particularly useful for analysing the shape and functioning of autocracies. Finally, I use such a regime focus to study the Chinese Communist Party and its leadership succession process, which is characterised by increasing institutionalisation and complementary as well as substitutive relations between formal and informal institutions.

Introduction

Over the past twenty years, it has become increasingly acknowledged that political science has to address not only formal but also informal institutions, as well as the relations between the two. The fact that interest in informal institutions has significantly grown since the early 1990s is no coincidence. The manifold political, economic and social transformation processes occurring in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union; the end of the Cold War; and other local developments have not only opened up new opportunities for relevant observations but have also underlined the empirical importance of informal institutions in the context of such processes and beyond.

Together with the insights generated by recent research on formal entities such as political parties, elections and parliaments in autocracies, the analysis of informal institutions promises substantial potential for understanding and explaining the shape and functioning of authoritarian systems of political rule. Against this background, I set out to achieve two aims with this paper. First, I want to delineate the importance of informal institutions in authoritarian and other systems of political rule. By way of introduction, I briefly discuss why the study of informal elements in politics matters. Thereafter, I present some conceptual and broader analytical foundations of the study of informal institutions. Second, I show how a focus on political regimes can guide an institutionally oriented analysis of the shape and functioning of authoritarian and other systems of political rule. I then illustrate such a regime focus with reference to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and, more specifically, the issue of political succession at the top of the country’s state party, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In a brief final section, I summarise the main points of this paper.

Informal Institutions in Politics

According to Harold Lasswell, the central question in politics is: ‘Who gets what, when, how?’ The authoritative allocation of political goods of a material and immaterial nature —including political offices — can take place in different ways. In liberal democracies, formal institutions are of central importance in this context. They demarcate in a transparent and enforceable manner the areas of responsibility, the duties and the powers (and limits thereof) of central political actors as well as the procedures involved in political deliberation and decision-making.

Following a broad understanding of institutions, such formal institutions are comprised of rules, norms and agreements — regardless of whether they are fixed (i) in terms of laws, organisational statutes, treaties and other legally binding documents or (ii) in the form of customary law including tribal, clan and other indigenous law. A different modus for arriving at political outcomes consists of the establishment and subsequent use of informal (i.e. not legally framed but not necessarily illegal) inter-subjectively shared relational structures, behavioural and procedural modes, which are often only known to the ‘insiders’ involved. When such structures and modes are not used in an arbitrary or random manner but are based on rules, norms and agreements, we are faced with informal institutions.

Formal and informal institutions are not mutually exclusive. In practice, both types of institutions are used and, indeed, often combined in different kinds of systems of political rule. Even consolidated democracies, having experienced numerous free and fair elections as well as peaceful changes in power, host various informal institutions alongside their better-known formal counterparts. The strength or efficacy of both formal and informal institutions depends substantially on their stability and enforcement, which — in turn — are based on how much political actors value these institutions.

The basic interest accorded by political elites and other political actors to the use, maintenance and expansion of more or less institutionalised informal relational structures and behavioural and procedural modes can be easily explained in rational terms. Informal relations and practices open up room for manoeuvre beyond formal institutions, which can be quite rigid and often require high transaction costs. Formal institutions can also involve obligations in terms of accountability and transparency that not all political actors gladly submit to. The use of informal relational structures can increase the control and steering possibilities of ruling elites beyond and in addition to extant formal institutions. Such institutions can thus help to accumulate and to retain power. The purposes and the kinds of informal relational structures and behavioural and procedural modes used by political actors are affected by the specific systemic political context. For example, in autocratic ‘predatory states’, in which the state’s resources are looted by the ruling elite, material benefits can be maximised through the usage of informal relational systems and practices. Also, where there is no (or only rudimentary) rule of law — as is the case in autocratic and some hybrid political systems — rulers do not have to fear sanctions when using informal institutions that are clearly illegal, such as corruption.

In the following section, I address some basic analytical foundations of the study of informal institutions, which are also relevant for analyses of such institutions in autocracies. In this context, I also address the possible relationships between formal and informal institutions...(Continued)