Who Serves the Party on the Ground? Grassroots Party Workers for China’s Non-Public Sector of the Economy

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) needs to recruit and incentivize two categories of grassroots party workers, namely, grassroots party secretaries and full-time party workers, to take on party work for the non-public sector of the economy. Three general strategies of recruitment have been developed: adaptation, reactivation and cooptation. Using these strategies, the CCP sets in motion the flow of human resources between the public and the non-public sectors. The CCP provides three general incentives to its grassroots party workers: material incentives, status incentives and the incentives of identity. Full-time party workers are careerists who ‘live off’ the Party and expect material incentives, while part-time grassroots party secretaries are believers who ‘live for’ the Party and expect status incentives and the incentives of identity.