Gender and corruption in China: negotiating female officials’ place in a gendered dual-track system

Defying prior studies on authoritarian rules’ suppressing effects on the gender difference in corruption, female officials in China demonstrate a lower level of both actual involvement and tolerance of corruption than their male counterparts. This chapter explains this puzzle using a Feminist Institutionalist framework. We argue that building on the traditional gender regime, Chinese politics prescribes a dual-track system within which women are included in politics yet excluded from the core of power in both formal institutions and informal clientelist networks which provide corruption opportunities and a protection shield from punishment. While the recent anti-corruption campaign has brought more women into the power ring under the gendered impression women are “cleaner,” whether it changes the masculinity-based political culture remains a question. Taken together, our research enriches the understanding of gender and corruption in China and extends the literature on the gender aspects of clientelism.