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Abstract
This research explores the political factors that determined the spatial variations of the private economic development of Zhejiang province in China after 1949. I argue that even in an authoritarian country, when political elites are divided into competing groups and there are fierce political struggles between them, this opens the opportunity to potential private entrepreneurs because certain elite groups may provide protection, in order to win over entrepreneurs' support and gain the upper hand in the political competition. My hypothesis is that if guerrilla forces were strong in a particular locality prior to 1949 (here I am referring to a county), then after 1949 the local cadre group, the weak side in the post-1949 strife between the elites, had greater incentives and capabilities to protect and promote private economy than their counterparts in the places where the guerrilla forces were weak before 1949. The empirical evidence strongly supports the hypothesis. The theoretical framework developed here can be effectively applied to other provinces in China, revealing similar patterns of the interrelation between local cadres and private entrepreneurs.
