The Breakdown of Hierarchies in the Soviet Union and China
A Neoinstitutional Perspective
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6411072 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Steven L Solnick (Columbia University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1996 |
| Volume | 48 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 209-238 |
| Publication date | 1996-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | World Politics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0043-8871 • E-ISSN: 1086-3338 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/wp.1996.0005 |
| OpenAlex | W1482410984 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 41 |
| References cited | 59 |
Why did modest attempts to decentralize the centrally administered Soviet system lead to its collapse, while more far-reaching decentralization in China left central political and administrative hierarchies intact? This article analyzes the disintegration of centrally planned organizations in the context of a neoinstitutional model of the breakdown of authority within hierarchies. An agency model of hierarchy is presented that incorporates the ambiguous property rights, authority relations, and risk-sharing conditions that prevailed under central planning and then persist during postcommunist transitions. This model suggests that decentralizing reforms could trigger an organizational “bank run,” prompting local agents to seize organizational assets under their control. The article also considers reputation-preserving strategies that central authorities might use to avert disintegration.As an application of this model, the collapse of Soviet political, industrial, and state fiscal hierarchies are considered and compared with the experience of analogous sectors in China. Reforms in both states transferred significant autonomy from the center to local field agents. In the Soviet case these agents appropriated organizational assets with little interference from the center. In China, by contrast, the center preserved both its capacity for monitoring and its reputation for disciplining transgressions; and the rise of hybrid ownership forms made expropriation of state and Party assets far less attractive
Agency (philosophy · Autonomy · Business · China · Context (archaeology · Decentralization · Economic system · Economics · Hierarchy · Legitimacy · Market economy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Reputation · Sociology · State (computer science · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Chinese history and philosophy · Law · Soviet and Russian History
The State as Investment Market
China's transition to markets
Institutional Innovations, Asymmetric Decentralization, and Local Economic Development
Evolution of government and market under China’s reform era
Soviet Communication and Soviet Society (1917–1953)
China's Gilded Age
Disembedding Socialist Firms as a Statist Project
Reexamine regional models of China's economic growth
Stability’s” End
Regional Variation in Business-Government Relations in Russia and China
Media Openings and Political Transitions
The Ongoing Reforms to China's Government and State Sector
Further thoughts on Chinese politics at the top
Strange bedfellows
Poverty, Inequality and the Challenges of Pro-Poor Governance in Bangladesh
Education Reform in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan
Historische Kontingenz und Zusammenbruchsdynamik
Development lessons from China
Institutionalizing from the Middle
Authoritarian Co-optation, the Territorial Dimension
Party Selection of Officials in Contemporary China
Party Selection of Officials in Contemporary China
The Variant Effect of Decentralization on Trust in National and Local Governments in Asia
Making Reform Work
Expectations, authority and divergent market transitions
La bureaucratie policiere et la chute du regime sovietique
Legal Development in Post-Soviet Russia
The Case for Chinese Federalism
Understanding China's Reform Looking beyond Neoclassical Explanations
Signal Left, Turn Right
Informational efficiency, organisational development and the institutional linkages of the provincial people's congresses in China
Strategic Uncertainty and Elite Defections in Electoral Autocracies
Contrasts in China and Soviet reform
Leader Influence and Reputation Formation in World Politics
Is Cuba Different? Regime Stability, Social Change, and the Problem of Reform Strategy
The allocation of property rights in Russia
Post-communist political studies
Strategizing on the riverbank
Transformation from Below in Bangladesh
Territorial Inequality in Health Service Delivery
A Fiscal Sociological Theory of Authoritarian Resilience
The Soviet economic system
The innovation decision in Soviet industry
Organization Theory
Changing Political Economies
Game Theory and Economic Modelling
Economic Analysis of Property Rights
Managerial Dilemmas
Economic Behavior and Institutions
Inside Bureaucracy
Riding the Tiger
The Socialist System
Moral Hazard and Observability
Predation, reputation, and entry deterrence
Reputation and imperfect information
Political Institutions
How to Reform a Planned Economy
Central–Local Relations in an Era of Fiscal Decline
Structural Factors in the Economic Reforms of China, Eastern Europe, and the Former Soviet Union
The chain store paradox
Theory of the firm
The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China
Factory and Manager in the USSR
Implications of the State Monopoly Over Industry and Its Relaxation
The Soviet Union and Social Science Theory
Market Socialism or the Restoration of Capitalism
China deconstructs
Organizational Dynamics of Market Transition
The Birth of the Propaganda State
The Russian banking system
Reforming the Soviet Economy
Crisis and Plenty
Gorbachev's Struggle for Economic Reform
Economic Analysis of Property Rights
Stalinist Planning for Economic Growth, 1933-1952
The socialist system
The Dynamics of Informational Cascades
Fiscal Reform and the Economic Foundations of Local State Corporatism in China
State Power, Institutional Change, and the Politics of Privatization in Russia
Information, Bureaucracy, and Economic Reforms in China and the Soviet Union
Fiscal Reform and Local Industrialization
Incentives in Principal-Agent Relationships
The Birth of the Propaganda State
Reputation and Hegemonic Stability
Changing Central-Local Relations in China
Sleeping with the enemy
| Unique citing works | 41 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,37 |
| Citation span | 1996 - 2025 (30) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 41 |