Patronage, Risk, and Performance: Evidence from China's Local COVID-19 Responses

Why do local Chinese governments prefer draconian pandemic control responses even against the central mandates to balance social-economic development? Using an original city-day panel dataset on purges of officials, COVID-19 cases, and lockdown levels of Chinese prefectural cities from 2020 through 2021, we find that while local leaders were rarely purged for their poor performance in pandemic control, significantly more officials were purged for non-pandemic reasons in cities that experienced a COVID-19 outbreak several months ago. Meanwhile, cities whose leaders have patronage ties with the provincial party secretary saw less severe lockdown policies imposed in outbreaks. Our findings suggest that local leaders in China adopt strict lockdown policies to avoid the risks of exposure that might escalate from post-outbreak investigations; however, their risk aversion and pandemic responses can be moderated by patronage networks by assuring them protection from the patron. These findings highlight the benign effects of patronage networks for bureaucratic management in authoritarian governance.