All the Emperor's Men? Conflicts and Power-Sharing in Imperial China

Autocracies often rely on power-sharing to maintain political survival. The literature, however, does not provide an adequate explanation for why autocratic regimes differ in the capability to enforce power-sharing. Drawing on the case of imperial China in the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), this article argues that institutionalized bureaucratic system may be an arguably credible mechanism for facilitating power-sharing. Examining the pattern of bureaucratic turnovers in the Qing period shows that the sanctions and promotions for provincial governors were significantly affected by the level of internal armed conflicts. Favoritism was granted to Manchus, the ruling minority group, for the promotion toward the top level. With the presence of armed conflicts at the province level, however, the rulers were induced to select Han elites from the majority group, as governors. These results are consistent with the logic of power-sharing by virtue of a loyalty-versus-competence trade-off in bureaucratic selections.