“One Team, Two Nameplates”: Why China's Ruling Institutions Are Increasingly Taking on Dual Identities

Since administrative reforms in 2018, many of China's top governing institutions have begun to operate under dual identities – often as a Chinese Communist Party body and a government organisation with different names but the same leadership team. This low-profile but far-reaching phenomenon, which we term “institutional doubling,” has received little scholarly attention. Why has Xi Jinping encouraged institutional doubling, and what are the implications for the party-state system? This study uses an original dataset of governing bodies to argue that institutional doubling advances three main goals: (1) increasing party control over non-party institutions, (2) reducing bureaucratic inefficiencies, and (3) presenting institutions differently to foreign audiences. Although tight party control can cause bureaucratic inefficiencies, we find that the government sees institutional doubling as a solution to this challenge. Our findings suggest the need for scholars to rethink the evolution of party-state relations and governance techniques in the Xi era.