Speaker:

Dr Chan Hon Suen
Visiting Senior Research Fellow, East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore and Professor, Department of Public and Social Administration, City University of Hong Kong

Date:

Friday, 1 December 2017, 3:30pm-5:00pm

Venue:

EAI Conference Room
NUS Bukit Timah Campus
469A Bukit Timah Road
Tower Block #06-01
Singapore 259770

Abstract:

This seminar provides an overview of the origin, importance and strength of the non-leading cadre system in China and argues that the system plays a key role in building the resilience of China’s bureaucracy. The non-leading cadre system is administratively and politically important because it makes the party-state bureaucracy more adaptable and fosters cohesion in the elite cadre workforce. Although the system may appear to have institutionalised redundancy, this seminar argues that such a redundancy can be seen as equipping both leading and non-leading cadres with the capacity to convert status. The non-leading cadre system provides the party-state bureaucracy at various levels with the leverage to develop measures for resolving their own problems. Putting aside the deficiencies in implementation, the non-leading cadre system is likely to remain and help sustain an agile and resilient personnel management system at least in the short to medium term.

About the Speaker:

Dr Chan has been an assistant dean for Internationalisation of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, the City University of Hong Kong since 2015. He earned his B SoSC and M Phil degrees from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and MA and PhD degrees from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University. He published articles in indexed journals, most of which are top ranked in the fields of public administration and area studies. He is a member of the editorial boards of more than 10 journals including Public Administration Review, American Review of Public Administration, Australian Journal of Public Administration, International Journal of Public Administration and Public Performance and Management Review. His research has been funded by the Research Grant Council, Hong Kong SAR government, National Science Foundation of the Executive Yuan (Taiwan), National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean government and Ministry of Education, Singapore government (for a tier-2 project), among other sources. Currently, Dr Chan is working on the nomenklatura history of the People’s Republic of China.