Entrepreneurial Leadership under Authoritarianism: How a Party Secretary Reformed Intergovernmental Relations in China

This article examines how entrepreneurial leadership can drive local-level administrative reform in China's Party-state bureaucracy. Drawing on a within-case comparison of two city Party secretaries who faced similar structural pressures, it identifies a repertoire of tactics—framing crises strategically, interest-aligned incentive design, speed of implementing pre-emptive measures and resource marshalling with credible commitment—that enabled one leader to reallocate authority and responsibilities between city- and district-government levels, while his predecessor had failed to accomplish this. The findings illuminate the micro-foundations of institutional change in a top-down system, showing how entrepreneurial leadership, enacted through concrete intrastate tactics under structural constraints, delivers reform outcomes in authoritarian contexts.