Political Science Speaker Series

The relationship between government and organized crime is dualistic: they can be adversaries or collaborators depending on converging interests. However, the dynamics of this relationship over time remain unclear. We argue that in a decentralized authoritarian system, the motivations of local officials to demonstrate competence or loyalty shape their dealings with organized crime. Local officials aiming for promotion may tolerate or even partner with organized crime if it benefits local development and economic growth. Conversely, when higher authorities prioritize crime eradication as a political commitment, these officials intensify efforts against organized crime to display loyalty. We use China's "Sweeping Black and Eradicating Evil" (SBEE) anti-crime campaign as a case study and construct an original panel dataset from 2,700 prefecture-level procuratorate annual work reports spanning 2011 to 2020. Utilizing a difference-in-difference approach, our finding shows that fiscal reliance on land revenue lowers local governments’ motivation to combat organized crime with whom they partnered in land acquisition and real estate development. However, the SBEE campaign conducted from 2018 to 2020 altered this trend, leading to a significant shift in the opposite direction. This article contributes to the literature on the political economy in developing countries as well as criminal governance under authoritarian context.