Career trajectories of regional officials: Russia and China before and after 2012

Authoritarian leaders rely on regional for both political support and the fulfillment of their policy objectives. In addition, top face trade-offs between following established rules managing bureaucratic officials’ careers exercising a free hand in choosing officials. This paper compares patterns appointment officials Russia China before after 2012. recent years, countries have centralized personalized state power. We hypothesize that these changes altered policies appointments such way as to increase dependence central authorities reduce autonomy create own networks at level. analyze comprehensive original set biographical data all from 2003 through 2019 2000 Russia. discern clear differences pre- post-2012 period less marked Turnover has become more frequent systems; average tenure office fallen; share “outsiders” risen. However, corps not been rejuvenated.