How do dominant ethnic minority groups balance maximizing inner-ethnic interests with recruiting capable outer-ethnic elites in terms of sustaining long-term governance effectiveness and political stability? Using a newly constructed dataset, this paper examines the case of disaster grain relief in Qing China (1644–1911) to determine whether the criteria of ethnic preference or competency preference may account for the variances of relief resource distribution across different provinces. Employing systematic analysis, we find that both ethnicity and governance competence of chief provincial officials were significantly associated with outcome of central relief resources distributed among provinces during the said period. In particular, Manchu officials received significant “ethnic prefe...[ Read more ]

How do dominant ethnic minority groups balance maximizing inner-ethnic interests with recruiting capable outer-ethnic elites in terms of sustaining long-term governance effectiveness and political stability? Using a newly constructed dataset, this paper examines the case of disaster grain relief in Qing China (1644–1911) to determine whether the criteria of ethnic preference or competency preference may account for the variances of relief resource distribution across different provinces. Employing systematic analysis, we find that both ethnicity and governance competence of chief provincial officials were significantly associated with outcome of central relief resources distributed among provinces during the said period. In particular, Manchu officials received significant “ethnic preferential treatment” compared with their Han counterparts, while officials with higher administrative competence regardless of ethnic belongings obtained more resources as well. In addition, we find that returns of bureaucratic competence differed among ethnic groups, with Han officials receiving the highest return compared with officials from other ethnic groups. Our findings may have implications to both literature of ethnic minority rule and some well-known debates in historical studies concerning Qing China.