We the People’s Republic
China’s Democratic Village Elections
&
the Legitimacy of the One-Party State
Jace T. White
---------Rollins College
We the People’s Republic
Spring 2013
Table of Contents
I.
Introduction………………………………………….. 2
II.
The Analytical Context
Of Democracy in China…………………………..... 7
III.
The Dynamics of
Village Self-Government……..……………….......10
i.
Elections and Local Governance……....................... 11
ii.
Elections and Rural Villagers……………………….. 19
IV.
Village Elections
& Political Legitimacy………..……….…….......... 24
V.
Conclusion…………………………………………..... 28
VI.
Bibliography…………………………………………... #
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Jace T. White
Abstract: The implementation of democratic elections in villages across China has
been one of the most widely discussed topics of the reform era. In particular,
analysis has attempted to determine the potential significance and consequences of
village elections for the much broader issues of political reform in China. Analyzing
the issue at the local level, this paper contends that the institutionalization of
village elections and certain elements of electoral democracy in village governance
allow opportunities for the party-state to reconsolidate its rural political legitimacy.
This paper will provide evidence to its main contention by drawing evidence from
scholarly review, village-level case studies, and analysis of the implications of village
elections for the rural political legitimacy of the party-state vis-à-vis the structures
and dynamics of local-level governance and the rural voting populace.
I. Introduction
Revolutionary change in China has always, by and large, been a
product of the rural countryside. In the decades following 1949, the will of the
rural Chinese people was to lead the People’s Republic of China into a new
age of revolutionary Maoist communism. Nearly sixty-four years later, the
rural Chinese people are supposedly the vanguard of no less revolutionary a
movement designed to bring China into modernity—democracy. Whether
China is able to realize the “fifth modernization” is an issue of considerable
contention, but recent developments in village self-government (Cunmin
Zizhi 村民自治) provide a different light in which to analyze future political
reform in China.
Pro-market reforms and the gradual liberalization of the Chinese
economy under the guidance of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the
Post-Mao era has resulted in phenomenal developmental growth and rising
standards of living, bringing China ever closer to international standards of
modernity. China’s future success is unsurprisingly directly dependent on the
economic system’s sustainability. However, economic development as it
currently stands has not been without its demerits. Rampant systemic
corruption, widening wealth inequality, increasingly common social unrest,
and decreasing economic growth rates threaten the sustainability of economic
development and therefore China’s modernization.
The successful resolution of these issues and sustainability of economic
growth hinges largely on the capacity of the Chinese political system to
undergo reforms that would enable it to cope with the developmental issues
of a continuously changing economic system. The central Chinese leadership
has fully understood the necessity of political reform, especially from the
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onset of the post-Mao era reforms. Deng Xiaoping, the author of the
phenomenal and sweeping economic reforms of the past four decades,
realized that the successful progression of economic reform and development
would greatly depend on concurrent political reform. Deng was especially
vocal in his support for the so-called dual track of development, notably
claiming: “If we fail to do that [political reform], we shall be unable to
preserve the gains we have made in the economic reform… Without political
reform, economic reform cannot succeed… So in the final analysis, the
success of all our other reforms depends on the success of the political
reform.”1 Most analysts, therefore, agree that China’s future modernization
depends almost entirely on significant reform of the Chinese political system,
yet the predicted ramifications vary significantly.
Political reform as it currently stands, while not completely static, has
lagged far behind economic reforms and by most accounts is far from
achieving democratization. There have been important steps, although slowpaced and incremental, towards political reform. China’s traditional
authoritarian political system has evolved, for example, in terms of its
developing norms of meritocratic leadership promotion and norms of stable
leadership succession. Yet perhaps the most important and notable
institutional development is the implementation of democratic elections for
membership in rural village committees (Cunmin weiyuanhui 村民委员会), a
village-level executive and administrative body equivalent to that of city
councils in Western societies. Analysts frequently point to village elections
and village self-government 2 as providing the foundation for eventual fullfledged political reform.
China’s experiment with democratic village elections began in 1987 in
direct response to the process of the de-collectivizing the people’s communes a
few years prior in 1982. As part of Deng’s economic reforms, dismantling the
basic administrative level of the Chinese communist system allowed for the
“Household Responsibility” system of land privatization to take effect. While
Deng Xiaoping, “Reform of the Leadership System of the Party and State”,
Selections of Deng Xiaoping, Volume II (Beijing: People’s Press, 1983), pp. 320-343
2 The term Village Self-Government in this paper refers to the local structures,
institutions and dynamics of “autonomous” governance derived from the
implementation of village elections, mainly defined by the relationship between the
village committee and the voting villagers. In theory, village self-government is
designed to reflect villagers democratically electing their preferred village committee
members to oversee village administrative affairs, independent of the higher strata
of the party-state administrative bureaucracy.
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Jace T. White
de-collectivization resulted in rising standards of living and greater economic
opportunities for rural Chinese, the process thoroughly shook up local
governance structures. The village-level political organizational units of the
commune, namely the production brigades (danwei 单位), were disbanded
along with the commune. The dissolution of these basic rural political
organizations resulted in a political vacuum among the rural villages,
causing concern for the party-state 3 due to it’s substantially decreased
presence in the countryside. Furthermore, the lowest rung of government
bureaucracy shifted up to the township level (Xiangzhen 乡镇) of governance,
leaving villages not only economically but also, to an extent, politically
autonomous. Interestingly, some villages elected their own leaders to an
executive organizational body, a village committee, without the government’s
express permission and through democratic means. This drew the attention
and, interestingly, later approval of the Chinese central leadership interested
in reasserting party-state control in the countryside, providing for effective
governance in the villages, and protecting against the possibilities of rural
economic and political instability. 4 The central Leadership’s response of
support for village elections and democratic village self-governance reflected
the oft-invoked policy-making method of “proceeding from point to surface”
(youdian daomian 由点到面), or decentralized, locally-based experimental
policy-making; democratic village elections and village self-governance were
thus sanctioned as experimental local solutions to the breakdown of rural
For the sake of clarity and expediency in writing this paper, the general term
party-state will be used to refer to the monolithic, centralized, one-party
authoritarian governing body of the Chinese political system—the combination of
the administrative bureaucracy and the guiding Chinese Communist Party. The
party-state is further divided into five categories of vertical strata: Central-level,
provincial-level, prefectural-level, county-level, and township-level (or local-level).
For more on the Chinese state structure, see: Kenneth J. Lieberthal, Managing the
China Challenge: How to Achieve Corporate Success in the People’s Republic
(Harrisonburg: The Brookings Institution, 2011), pp. 11-58; J. Bruce Jacobs,
“Elections in China,” The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 25 (1991), pp. 172
4 For an overview of early rural reforms and the de-collectivization of the commune
system, see: Qingshan Tan, Village Elections in China: Democratizing the
Countryside (Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2006), pp. 33-64; Kevin J. O’Brien
and Lianjiang Li, “Accommodating ‘Democracy’ in a One-Party State: Introducing
Village Elections in China,” The China Quarterly 162 (Jun. 2000), pp. 465-489;
Tyrene White, “Reforming the Countryside,” Current History, 91 (Sep. 1992), pp.
273-277
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governance and a strategy to shore up the party-state’s local political
authority and legitimacy.5
As a result, the Ministry of Civil Affairs enacted the Organic Law of
Village Committees in 1987, requiring each of China’s nearly 930,000 villages
to elect members of a village committee through democratic means. 6 The
village committee, consisting of five to seven elected members, would act as
the village’s executive administrative body and oversee local administrative
affairs. The Organic Law further mandated that village committees be
elected in three-year cycles. After the trial implementation beginning in
1987, the Organic Law was adopted into full law in 1998, signaling a
permanent institutionalization of village-level electoral law in China.7
Unsurprisingly, this development has drawn considerable scholarly
attention, and debate carries on regarding the implications of village
elections and village self-government for China’s future political reform. The
presence of democratic elections at the lowest level of Chinese society may
appear to be a political breakthrough in one of the most notoriously
authoritarian states, but the realities are much more nuanced. In many
ways, the village has become a testing ground for whether or not democracy
can work in China and the experimentation with democratic elections in
China’s villages continues into the 21st century without offering a decisive
answer. In addition, great variances in regional experiences with village selfgovernment further cloud the picture; one village’s experiences with elections
may be starkly different from others’ and therefore no decisive consensus
exists on the decisive implications of village elections for political reform.
However, numerous case studies of village elections from across China serve
to highlight the overarching trends in possible implications for future
political reform from which conclusions can be drawn.
For an overview on China’s process of utilizing local experimentation of national
policies in determining their viability and maximizing their effectiveness, see:
Sebastian Heilmann, “From Local Experiments to National Policy: The Origins of
China’s Distinctive Policy Process,” The China Journal 59 (Jan. 2008), pp. 1-31;
Sebastian Heilmann, “Policy Experimentation in China’s Economic Rise,” Studies in
Comparative International Development 43 (2008), pp. 1-26
6 National People’s Congress, Organic Law of Villagers Committees of the People’s
Republic of China (1998): <http://www.china.org.cn/english/government/207279.htm>
7 For a comprehensive overview of the history of the Organic Law and the debate in
the central leadership regarding its passage and implementation, see: O’Brien and
Li, “Accommodating ‘Democracy’ in a One-Party State,” pp. 465-489; Daniel Kelliher,
“The Chinese Debate over Village Self-Government,” The China Journal 37 (1997),
pp. 63-86
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The purpose of this paper will be to explore the consequences of village
elections in context of the much broader issue of future political reform in
China. Specifically, this paper will analyze the potential implications of
village elections for the political legitimacy of the current party-state regime’s
rural presence, authority, and leadership. Along these lines, this paper
asserts that village elections, in institutionalizing electoral democracy as a
basis of legitimate grassroots-level governance, also cogently signify the
capacity of village elections to contribute to the reconsolidation and
strengthening of the authoritarian, one-party state’s political legitimacy
throughout rural China. The implications of village elections and village selfgovernment, analyzed in context of both local dynamics and structures of
local governance as well as rural Chinese villagers particularly evidences the
capacity of village elections to reinforce the party-state’s internal and
external legitimacy.
Going forward, this paper will begin with an examination of the
appropriate criteria with which to define the concept of democracy, especially
as it pertains to village elections and China’s current political circumstances.
Subsequently, the paper will provide an ample selection of the current body
of scholarly literature concerning village elections and political reform in
China, in many cases including scholarly case studies of several issues
pertinent to village elections as well. For lack of official and reliable national
data or surveys of village elections, analysis as a result must rely for the most
part on scholarly case studies of village elections conducted across China.
These case studies provide a comprehensive overview of the key trends and
themes of village self-government and elections across the vast breadth of the
largely anecdotal “mountain of evidence” from which arguably any conclusion
concerning village elections can be haphazardly drawn.8
With this in mind, this paper will avoid the use of anecdotal evidence
to draw conclusions and avoid getting bogged down in finite details of specific
incidences of village self-government and village elections. The rationale
behind the analysis of case studies is to reveal how a village’s specific
electoral experiments may be significant of the much broader underlying
themes and trends existing in rural Chinese villages and how these may
signify similar trends in Chinese politics at large. That is to say, this paper
will not determine the significance of village elections for China’s political
system by pointing to specifics, as one village’s experiences most decidedly do
Melanie Manion, “How to Assess Village Elections in China,” Journal of
Contemporary China 18 (Jun. 2009), p. 379
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not represent the whole of China in the slightest; this paper will not, for
instance, point to the specific failure of elections in Village A to oust a corrupt
cadre or the specific dynamic of Village B’s village committee-party
relationship to conclude the future of political reform in China. Rather, as
village elections are still a relatively new political development across China,
this paper will relate the experiences of specific villages carefully researched
in case studies as evidence of potential trends in the broader context of
political reform in China as a whole.
In order to determine the potential implications of village elections for
the party-state’s rural legitimacy, this paper will examine the effects of
institutionalized village electoral democracy for the structures and dynamics
of local governance and the political role and involvement of rural villagers.
In particular, this paper’s conclusions will focus its analysis on the potential
consequences of village elections for both the external and internal legitimacy
of the party-state. That is, analysis of the structures and dynamics of local
governance will demonstrate the capacity of village elections to aid in the relegitimation of the party-state’s own internal structures of governance.
Similarly, the analysis of village elections as they impact rural villagers will
highlight the potential of village elections to re-legitimate its external
relations with the villagers themselves.
II. The Analytical Context of Democracy in China
Any discussion of political reform in China must also provide a
sufficient analytical context of the theory of democracy. Including a working
definition of the components of democracy allows for the appropriate analysis
of the democratic nature of village elections as well as the analysis of their
potential democratizing power. Yet certain questions remain: what is
democracy and how do we judge a political system to be democratic? Is it
appropriate to hold developing political systems to Western standards of
democracy? Although this paper will primarily examine how village elections
provide for the reconsolidation of the party-state’s legitimacy, analysis of the
democratic village self-government operating in China offers a more complete
picture of the nature of democratic village elections and democratic village
self-government. Therefore, this section will expound on certain criteria
through which to define democracy in China.
In order to synthesize this functioning definition of democracy, this
paper will draw on select scholarly interpretations. For one, Larry Diamond’s
account of electoral democracy is, in his words, “a civilian, constitutional
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Jace T. White
system in which the legislative and chief executive offices are filled through
regular, competitive, multiparty elections with universal suffrage.”
Furthermore, Diamond asserts that elections themselves must be free and
fair to be considered democratic in their own right or conducive to democratic
governance. Firstly, elections must be free in the sense that legal barriers to
entry and participation in the election are minimal, that competition and
partisanship are both permitted and protected, and that voters must be free
from coercive or fraudulent electoral processes. Secondly, elections must be
fair in the sense that they are equitable, transparent, and impartial, free of
control by the vested interests present in the ruling party, and accessible by
all adult citizens granted the right to vote in universal suffrage.9
The appropriate context in which to examine China’s potential paths of
political reform is thus reliant on a practical selection of criteria for what
shall constitute democracy. It would be counterintuitive to select these
criteria according to lofty Western standards, as the West’s political
development experience, political culture, and historical-political context all
differ greatly from those of China. In analyzing democratic characteristics
through a developmental perspective, the definition of democracy operates
more so along a continuum rather than on an either/or basis. 10 That is,
because it would be inappropriate to judge the nascent inklings of democracy
in China according to the standards of the more advanced and
institutionalized liberal democracies of Western states, the developing
notions of democracy in China must begin at the basic level on this
continuum. For example, the staple characteristics of liberal democracies,
such as multiple political parties, systems of government checks-andbalances, and most cogently the direct election of national legislative and
executive offices do not appropriately reflect criteria of a developing
democratic system, but criteria of advanced, institutionalized democratic
societies.
And so, accounting for China’s status as a developing nation, the
criteria of democracy—pertaining to village elections and their broader
implications for political reform—will borrow from Diamond’s rudimentary
interpretation of electoral democracy. As a result, democracy for the purposes
of this paper will be defined with the following five basic yet significant
criteria:
Larry Diamond, “Introduction: Elections and Democracy in Greater China,” The
China Quarterly 162, pp. 366
10 Ibid. pp. 367
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1) The enfranchised citizenry determine chief legislative and executive offices
through free and fair direct elections
2) Electoral procedures are governed by the rule of law.
3) The political system must allow and respect pluralism, namely dissent of
opinion and organization of opposition
4) Universal suffrage is extended to the adult citizenry as an inalienable
constitutional and legal right.
5) Norms and/or institutions of accountability, responsiveness, competence in
governance exist that reinforce the connection between government and
voters, allowing the interests of the voting citizenry potential indirect
influence over the policy-making process, to a degree.
These five criteria allow for the appropriate and realistic judgment of
whether or not China’s experiment with village self-government represents
developments in democracy. However, despite frequent claims on part of
central leaders that the foundations of the Chinese political system lie with
“socialist democracy” or the equally enigmatic “democracy with Chinese
characteristics,” the obvious conclusion based on the aforementioned criteria
is that although certain elements of democracy may be developing in China,
Chinese democracy as it currently stands remains far removed from
meaningful notions of democracy in the macro perspective. The political
system’s democratic shortcomings are notably evident, for instance, in the
lack of elections for central executive and legislative leadership, the
frequency with which rule by law constitutes the guiding legal system, and
the outright prohibition of opposition parties or organizations, just to name a
few. However, whereas democracy is obviously non-existent at the national
perspective, at the local perspective village self-government has made some
arguably significant strides towards realizing a combination of the above
criteria.
As the purpose of this paper is to determine whether the institutions
and norms of village electoral democracy will benefit or detract from the
party-state regime’s rural legitimacy, the above criteria are critical to
contextually defining democracy in China. Going forward, the use of the term
democracy in this paper will reflect the above criteria. Similarly, the term
democratization will refer to the spread of these criteria to other sectors of
governance (e.g. the ‘bottom-up’ spread of democratic institutions and norms
to higher government strata) or, similarly, will refer to the increasing
development of these criteria within certain levels of governance.
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III. The Dynamics of Village Self-Government
This paper draws on a broad review of the current body of scholarly
literature regarding village elections. The available body of literature
provides an exhaustive overview on the potential capacity for village elections
to lead to lasting and significant political reforms. Being such a controversial
topic, the future political reform has unsurprisingly drawn considerable
debate and various predictions of its nature. In focusing this paper’s topic on
village elections and village self-government, this paper will refer to the
portion of the central scholarly debate concerned primarily with the
significance of village elections for both the future of the party-state’s
political legitimacy in rural China. Within this section of the available
literature, this paper will specifically review scholarly research of villagelevel governance structures, developing electoral procedures, the wide array
of predictions for future political reform, and the dynamics of the political
involvement of rural villagers and the particulars of villager involvement in
local-level governance and politics.
As theories of the significance and consequences of village elections for
the above topics as well as for the current political system of centralized oneparty authoritarian rule, it is necessary order the review of the literature.
Therefore, In order to make sense of the breadth of available literature on
village elections and provide the best context in providing this paper’s central
thesis, it is necessary to further categorize the literature according to two
broad yet integral points of examination. The first point of examination will
analyze the link between village elections and village-level governance,
particularly in relation to the roles and involvement of village party
branches, township governments, and local-level cadres. The second point of
examination will analyze the effect village elections have on the villagers
themselves with regards to rights consciousness, participation, and political
efficacy. The various arguments and assertions derived from these central
issues will serve to create the contextual framework in which this paper will
synthesize its central thesis.
Village Elections and Local Governance
Forefront among the most significant issues in determining the
implications of village elections for political reform—and party-state
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legitimacy in particular—is examining how village elections affect the
structures and dynamics of rural governance and local political power.
Unsurprisingly, implementing village elections throughout China’s myriad
rural villages has been a complex process, confusing these traditional
structures and dynamics of local-level governance. Electoral democracy’s
introduction of both bottom-up and top-down dynamics of vertical
accountability—from rural villagers and the central party-state,
respectively—have thoroughly complicated the relationships between the
principal actors within the Chinese political system. That is to say, the
nature of interactions, division of responsibility, and definitions of political
hierarchy among the various levels of the administrative bureaucracy, the
branches of the Chinese Communist Party, and the elements of village selfgovernment are left undefined by the vagueness of the Organic Law; there is
a lack of standardization as to the definitive roles of village committees,
village party branches, and township governments in village self-government.
Prior to the assessment of the significance of village elections, it is first
necessary to note that while village elections in several cases are
procedurally democratic, this does not necessarily equate to democratic
governance of villages. For a more comprehensive understanding of the
significance of village elections and village self-government, it will be
important to recognize this key distinction. As Kevin J. O’Brien and Rongbin
Han explain, analyzing the implications of village elections through an
exclusively procedural view of democracy does not explain the exercise of
political power following an election.11 Specifically O’Brien and Han caution
that evaluation of village self-government should effectively differentiate
between access to power and exercise of power.12 By access to power, O’Brien
and Han are referring to the institutions and norms of electoral democracy
that allow villagers to participate in the political system, namely to vote for
preferred candidates, to run for village committee membership, and so forth.
The exercise of power, by contrast, refers to the specifics functions and
operations of local governance following the election. More specifically, this
refers to how power and authority is distributed between village committees,
In reference to this paper’s criteria for democracy defined in Section II, for village
self-government to be considered democratic, elections must not only be carried out
in a manner considered to be free and fair, but post-election politics must also be
governed by rule of law and democratic norms and institutions must be in place to
continue to hold government accountable to the voting populace.
12 Kevin J. O’Brien and Rongbin Han, “Path to Democracy? Assessing Village
Elections in China,” Journal of Contemporary China (2009), 18(60), p. 359-378
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township governments and local party branches following an election and
whether the different local-level actors in the political system are able to
effectively determine and adhere to a hierarchy of power and responsibility,
avoid overlapping claims to authority, and so forth. The distinction between
access to power and exercise of power is therefore a significant one. Many
scholars as a result, call for future research to reflect this distinction. Melanie
Manion, for instance, claims that discussion of the potential democratization
of China must take this distinction into account, as most democratization
optimists rely too much on the analysis of procedural democracy in making
their claims.13 Therefore, in going forth, this paper will take into account the
distinction between exercise of power and access to power in its analysis of
village elections. 14
With this distinction in mind, Lisheng Dong helpfully categorizes the
key issues concerning the implications of village elections for local
governance into terms of four key local-level governmental and political
bodies. 15 The first of these is the local party branch. Do these elections
strengthen or weaken the political authority of the party in the village? The
second concerns village-level cadres, or the party-state’s basic-level
administrative and bureaucratic officials. Do village elections result in the
responsiveness and accountability of local cadres? The third is the effect on
the political superiority of township governments over village affairs. Do
village elections upset the hierarchy of political power? Are village committee
members accountable to the interests of the voters that elected them or to the
directives of higher-ups in the township government? The fourth concerns the
implementation of state policy. Does village self-government present
difficulties to the central party-state’s capability to enact its policies in
villages across China? Examination of these four components of governance
in terms of how they are affected by village elections are helpful in providing
Melanie Manion, “How to Assess Village Elections in China,” Journal of
Contemporary China, p. 382
14 For an overview of access to power and exercise of power in Chinese villages,
please see: Lianjiang Li, “The Empowering Effect of Village Elections in China,”
Asian Survey 43 (2003), pp. 648-662; Melanie Manion, “Democracy, Community,
Trust: The Impact of Elections in Rural China,” Comparative Political Studies (39)3,
(2006), pp. 301-324; John James Kennedy, “Legitimacy with Chinese
Characteristics: ‘Two increases, one reduction’”, Journal of Contemporary China 18,
(2009)
15 Lisheng Dong, “Searching for a Direction After Two Decades of Local Democratic
Experiments in China” China Elections and Governance Review 2 (May 2009), pp. 6
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the best context in which to analyze the consequences of villager selfgovernment for the party-state’s rural legitimacy.
The question of how village elections affect the local party branch is of
particular importance. The local party branch is the farthest extension of the
central party state’s authority and as a result often assumes the most
influential and active role in local political affairs. In many respects the
relationship between the village party branch and the elected village
committee is the most significant official relationship in village-level politics
and defines the dynamics of village self-governance. Such as it is, the nature
of this relationship can make or break effective village-level governance.
As per the 3rd article of the Organic Law, the local party branch ought
to assume a role of “leadership” (lingdao 领 导 ) in village governance,
representing the party-state’s political authority in local affairs. However, the
language of Organic Law (like much of the law) is vague on the exact
relationship between the village committee and the local party branch,
leading to frequent jurisdictional conflicts between the two administrative
bodies. Qingshan Tan elaborates on this frequently dysfunctional
relationship, citing institutional deficiencies as the cause. 16 That is, the
absence of a legal institutional framework of governance is further confused
by the vagueness of the Organic Law; while designed to allow various
localities to experiment with the most effective electoral procedures
appropriate to the respective locality, actively contributes to ineffective postelection governance in villages. The lack of definitive legal language on the
sharing of administrative authority and responsibilities essentially renders
the village committees unable to compete with the party-state-backed
political superiority of the village party branch. The party branch has, in
many cases, remained the dominant political authority in the villages as a
result, thus precluding the institutionalization of efficient, democratic village
self-government. Similarly, Jean Oi and Scott Rozelle note from their study of
elections in thirty-two villages that the dynamic of power and authority in
the villages remained largely unchanged due to the frequent reassertion of
the village party branch’s political dominance. As a result, the village party
secretary typically remains the most powerful player in village politics. By Oi
Qingshan Tan, “Why Village Election Has Not Much Improved Village
Governance,” Journal of Chinese Political Science (2010)
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Jace T. White
and Rozelle’s analysis, the electoral procedures in many villages remain
largely insignificant in their effects for local structures of governance. 17
Other scholars, by contrast, are more optimistic regarding the capacity
for a harmonious relationship to exist between the village committee and the
local party branch. Bjorn Alpermann, for one, suggests that the
institutionalization of post-election procedures has simultaneously resulted
in improving opportunities for effective villager self-governance and
reinforced the local party branch’s role in village affairs as well. Specifically,
Alpermann refers to the institutional reconfiguration of certain dynamics of
village governance, particularly “democratic decision-making, management,
and supervision.”18 He further posits that even though the vagueness of the
Organic Law can, in some cases, lead to a problematic relationship between
the village committee and the party branch, provincial and township
governments will further refine the Organic Law as it passed down to lower
government levels so as to mold village governance to more aptly suit the
necessitating conditions of each locality. Furthermore, Alpermann views the
“leadership” role of township governments as beneficial to both local
governance and party-state control in rural localities. While the more
experienced township officials train village committee members in the
administration of village affairs, this also allows for opportunities to co-opt
village committee members to work for the party-state’s ends.
Regional experimentation with village self-governance has a resulted
in interesting and significant developments in the particular role of the
village party branch in some localities. Among the most notable of such
developments is the “Two-Ballot System” (Liangpiaozhi 两 票 制 ). Some
villages have allowed for the candidates for membership in the local party
branch to undergo a series of two elections in deciding their entry into party
membership. In the two-ballot system, the villagers choose their favored
candidate for membership from the available pool of candidates by simply
casting votes to note their preferences. However, this does not elect the
potential party members, instead this “election” more so reflects the villagers’
vote of confidence in a potential party member. Subsequently, local party
members take this vote into account when electing a new party member most
Jean Oi and Scott Rozelle, “Elections and Power: The Locus of Decision Making in
Chinese Villages,” The China Quarterly 162 (2000): pp. 513-539
18 Bjorn Alpermann, “Institutionalizing Village Governance in China,” Journal of
Contemporary China (2009), pp. 397-409
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likely to strengthen accountability and responsiveness between the local
party branch and the village people. 19
Much like the experiments with township elections, the experiments
with these indirect elections for village party membership were locally
invented and designed to remedy both poorly implemented village governance
and party members’ corruption and abuse of power. Because village party
secretaries in many cases manage the village committee’s affairs, village selfgovernment wouldn’t be meaningfully democratic without holding this
principal executive office accountable to norms of responsiveness,
accountability and transparency common to other areas of village selfgovernance. As a result, many township party branches incorporated the twoballot system as a staple institution of village self-government.20 Accordingly,
with the institutionalization of the two-ballot system in increasingly more
rural villages, legitimacy from the bottom up (i.e. from voters) rather than
from the top-down is increasingly becoming a norm contending to define the
legitimate role of the party branch in local governance.
In some cases, there exist clear-cut, spelled out divisions of
administrative responsibility and authority between the village committee
and the village party branch. However, when the divisions are not so distinct,
this reveals certain implications for villager-self government. In many cases,
proponents of villager self-government welcome the concurrent holding of the
two offices (yijiantiao 一肩挑) of village committee chair and village party
secretary as a potentially conducive development to the democratization of
local-level governance. According to Daniel Kelliher, these proponents believe
“that concurrent office-holding may lead to popular control over the local
party. Today, if a party secretary wants to exercise the presumptive right to
head the villagers’ committee, then he or she must submit to an election.”21
That is to say, a village party secretary must win the support of the voters to
act as the village committee chair and remain responsive and accountable to
the voting public while acting in such a role. In this way, the local party
branch becomes an arm of democratic village governance as a result, perhaps
signifying the potential of this development to advance a process of bottom-up
democratization. However, the particular sequence through which this
Lisheng Dong, “Searching for a Direction After Two Decades of Local Democratic
Experiments in China,” China Elections and Governance Review 2 (May 2009), pp. 3
20 Lianjiang Li, “The Two-Ballot System in Shanxi Province: Subjecting Village
Party Secretaries to a Popular Vote,” The China Journal, No. 42 (1999), pp. 103-118
21 Daniel Kelliher, “The Chinese Debate over Village Self-Government,” The China
Journal No. 37 (Jan. 1997), pp. 63-86
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Jace T. White
official comes to hold both offices significantly determines whether this
dynamic is indicative of democratization or, to the contrary, the
strengthening of the party-state’s political reach. The concurrent holding of
offices isn’t so indicative of democratization when switching the dynamic of
coming into possession of both roles, as is explained above. If the village
committee chair is appointed to act as local party secretary, this represents
the cooptation of the village committee and is instead more indicative of the
party-state’s reassertion of control over village-level political affairs. In such
a way, both the village committee chair and the local party secretary would
act according to the interests of the party-state rather than the voting
public.22
Beyond the significant role of village party branch, some scholars
instead focus on the role that the township governments play in village
governance. Township governments, replacing the disbanded commune
governments as the lowest level of party-state’s administrative bureaucracy,
operate at the political stratum just above village-level government. Acting as
the immediate superior political body to village self-government, the role of
the township in village governance is thus of special significance, with the
nature of involvement ranging from intervention to indifference. More
specifically, John J. Kennedy categorizes three distinct “attitudes” that
influence township governments to intervene in village-level affairs: support,
partial support, and opposition.23 These attitudes in turn frame much of the
relationship between village self-government and the townships, and to a
degree explain the successes or failures of certain cases of village selfgovernment.
Many analysts, focusing on the interventional role that township
governments play in village politics, regard the township-village relationship
as especially significant for village self-government. For example, Hang Lin
claims that due to the township’s central role in organizing village level
administrative activities, the success of village elections in producing
meaningful, effective governance depends almost entirely on the township’s
attitude towards village self-government. 24 The township, assuming the
dominant political role in supervising the division of labor between the
Suzanne Ogden, Inklings of Democracy in China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2002), pp. 203-204
23 John James Kennedy, “Legitimacy with Chinese Characteristics: ‘Two Increases,
Once Reduction,” Journal of Contemporary China 18(60), (2009), pp. 391-395
24 Hang Lin, “A Mixed Bag of Results: Village Elections in Contemporary China,”
Asian Culture and History, 3(1), (Jan. 2011), pp. 14-22
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village committee and village party branch in village governance, is capable
of manipulating or aiding in effective democratic village self-governance.
Administrative dysfunction in village government also may force the
township’s intervention. As Guo Zhenglin and Thomas Bernstein assert, in
cases of political gridlock resulting from jurisdictional conflicts between the
village committee and the local party branch, the township government will
intervene and will more likely adjudicate in favor of the party branch.25 Due
to both the distrust of villager self-rule coupled with the belief that the party
branch is more likely than the village committee to be more responsive to the
orders of superiors, the township will unsurprisingly support the party
branch’s authority.
Alpermann offers the dynamic of vertical accountability that exists
between township and village governments as another cause for township
intervention in village affairs, although in this case demonstrating support
for village self-government.26 Cadres operating at levels below the township
are typically unelected and therefore responsible for carrying out orders from
above; unelected cadres answer directly to the township governments and are
in most respects held accountable only to the township. The political
legitimacy of these cadres as well as their ability to retain their posts
therefore relies largely on their performance in effectively carrying out the
directives handed down from the township government and other levels of
government higher up. This dynamic of administrative responsibility granted
from above causes cadres to be more susceptible to falsifying performance
related data in order to meet requirements of their office from above. In
acknowledgement of this possible hindrance to the effective governance of
village affairs, townships as a result extend their political reach to villages to
prevent this from occurring. In some cases, this extension of political control
downward may take the form of the township supporting village elections,
particularly if these elections may result in strong dynamics of
accountability, transparency, and competency of cadres. With village
elections sanctioned by township governments, cadres would theoretically be
held accountable to the standards of performance necessitated by the
interests of the villagers directly affected by cadres’ active role in village
government. This change up of the dynamics of accountability would
Guo Zhenglin and Thomas F. Bernstein, “The Impact of Elections on the Village
Structure of Power: The Relations Between the Village Committee and the Party
Branches,” Journal of Contemporary China (2004), pp. 267-271
26 Bjorn Alpermann, “The Post-Election Administration of Chinese Villages,” The
China Journal 48 (Jul. 2001), pp. 45-67
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theoretically remove the immediate inclination of cadres to falsify
information, in turn most likely improving the quality of village-level
governance. As Oi and Rozelle aptly put it, “whether cadres have power
depends not on their office but on their own ability to mobilize resources.” 27
In this way, the township’s intervention actively contributes to effective
village self-governance.
The 1998 experimentation with directly electing township level
officials has unsurprisingly also drawn a considerable amount of scholarly
review and attention. Reform-minded local party leaders initiated elections
for magistrate positions in Buyun Township in Sichuan province without the
expressed consent of the central party-state. While the Organic Law does
leave much of the specifics of policy implementation to each respective
locality, the election of posts higher than those prescribed in the Organic Law
was a notably unauthorized interpretation of electoral democracy.
Unsurprisingly, the central government declared the experiment to be
unconstitutional and, interestingly, evoked China’s undertaking of the rule of
law as the rationale behind shutting down the experiment. However sincere
the central leadership might have been regarding the significance of
constitutionality and the rule of law, scholars instead point to the fact that
the township election experiment was a local invention as evidence of the
democratizing influence growing out of the implementation of village-level
electoral democracy. Furthermore, as townships comprise the lowest rung of
the party-state political hierarchy, scholars accordingly place great
importance with the potential of similar electoral experiments being held in
the future. 28
The implications of village elections for village-level cadres are also an
especially important aspect of village self-governance. As the basic
administrative and managerial post of party-state, cadres play an important
role in village-level governance and are arguably the most affected by village
elections. Especially since the beginning of the reform era, relations between
local level cadres and villagers have been particularly strained by the
Jean Oi and Scott Rozelle, “Elections and Power: The Locus of Decision Making in
Chinese Villages,” The China Quarterly 162 (2000): pp. 513
28 For an overview of the Buyun Township magistrate election of 1998, please see:
Melanie Manion, “Chinese Democratization in Perspective: Electorates and
Selectorates at the Township Level,” The China Quarterly, No. 163 (2000); Lisheng
Dong, “Direct Township Elections: Latest Developments and Prospects,” Journal of
Contemporary China (2006), pp. 503-515; Simon Shen, “Disharmony at the
Grassroots Level: Possible Alienation Caused by Town-Level Direct Elections in
China,” Journal of Chinese Political Science, (2010), pp. 191-203
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persistence of cadre corruption. Much of the available literature considers the
effects that village elections have on keeping village cadre malfeasance in
check and seeks to determine the capabilities of electoral institutions in
improving the cadre-villager relationship. David Zweig and Chung Siu Fung,
for instance, point out that village elections in several cases have resulted in
high turnover rates of local cadres. This is a result villager actively ousting
corrupt, imperious, or inefficient cadres with the ballot. Incumbent village
cadres, in the theoretical realization of this development, are thus held to a
political dynamic of accountability and responsiveness to villagers’ needs and
wants, lest they end up ousted as well during the next election cycle.29 On a
similar note, Manion asserts that there is a strong positive correlation with
the quality of electoral procedures and cadre responsiveness and
accountability. As a result, village elections strengthen the “congruence”
between villagers’ interests and village cadres’ administration; village
elections align cadre behavior more closely with villager needs and wants.30
However, other scholars offer evidence of continued disconnection
between cadre behavior and villager interests, even when cadre posts are
held accountable to regular elections. Cadres might, for example, willingly
choose to carry out unpopular policies while ignoring policies that align best
with villager interests. The likelihood of this so-called “selective policy
implementation”—or the propensity of cadres to ignore or even actively go
against the wishes of the villagers and their interests—increases the more
removed the role of the central party-state in village affairs. The sense of
autonomy and lack of top-down consequences to a degree ‘empowers’ cadres
to abuse the powers of their office, obviously resulting in frequently poor local
governance.31
Village Elections and Rural Villagers
In context of the macro view of the state’s strict control of political
power, the implications of the role of rural Chinese villagers in the political
system is frequently understated. However, with the advent of the Organic
David Zweig and Chung Siu Fung, “Elections, Democratic Values, and Economic
Development in Rural China,” Journal of Contemporary China 16(50), pp. 25-45
30 Melanie Manion, “The Electoral Connection in the Chinese Countryside,”
American Political Science Review Vol. 90 No. 4, (1996), pp. 736-748
31 Kevin J. O’Brien and Lianjiang Li, “Selective Policy Implementation in Rural
China,” Comparative Politics, 31(2), pp. 167-186
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Law and village self-government, Chinese villagers became key players in
rural China’s electoral experiment as a result. After all, village elections and
village self-government first grew out grassroots responses by the villagers
themselves to fill the political vacuum left in the wake of rural decommunization and provide for rural governance and stability. It was only
later that the party-state endorsed village self-government and began the
process of institutionalizing the political role of the rural villager through
village electoral democracy. In light of the political developments throughout
the countryside, the significance of role of the villager in rural politics,
therefore, cannot continue to be understated.
The economic reforms of the past four decades have resulted in the
significant transformation of not only the rural Chinese economic system but
also the people of rural China. Sweeping liberalization of the rural Chinese
economy since the introduction of the household responsibility system has
empowered rural Chinese with broadened economic freedoms. As a result,
demands for proper political channels to defend their economic rights and
interests are notably increasing and political reform is becoming a necessity.
The institutionalization of village self-government and village elections has
resulted in foundational institutions of democratic village self-governance, in
turn exposing rural Chinese to democratic processes and values. The rural
countryside is therefore also actively engaged in civic development as well.
That is to say, village self-government is driving the transformation of the
rural Chinese peasantry into the rural Chinese citizenry. Most scholars agree
that village elections have initiated an incremental process of broadening
villager involvement in the Chinese political system. 32 As the principal
agents in village self-government, villagers are notably impacted through the
implementation of village elections. In particular, village elections hold
certain implications vis-à-vis the empowerment of the voting rural
population, namely evolving dynamics of political efficacy, participation and
voting behavior, and attitudes toward democracy.
The trends of political efficacy of voting villagers reveal much about
not only the quality of elections but also the general prospects for democracy
to take root in China as well. Political efficacy, in the case of democratic
elections, refers to the general notion that voters feel their participation
See: Kevin J. O’Brien, “Villagers, Elections, and Citizenship in Contemporary
China,” Modern China 27(4): Tianjin Shi, “Village Committee Elections in China:
Institutionalist Tactics for Democracy,” World Politics 51(3): Robert Pastor and
Qingshan Tan, “The Meaning of Chinese Village Elections,” The China Quarterly
162
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matters and that similarly their votes are significant for the policy-making
process. More specifically, efficacy is further categorized into internal and
external efficacy—Internal efficacy referring to the belief that one
understands and therefore participates in politics and external referring to
the belief that one’s participation is effective and that the government
responds to the participation.
Some scholars assert that a positive correlation exists between the
quality and degree of efficient village-level electoral democracy and villager
political efficacy. Furthermore, these scholars also assert that building
political efficacy is especially significant for local dynamics of governance.
Lianjiang Li, for one, concludes that the enhanced political efficacy felt by
voting villagers may lead to increased political participation, thereby also
affecting the nature and dynamics of village-level governance. He goes on to
note that this enhanced villager political efficacy, when coupled with
unresponsive cadres, unsurprisingly creates tensions in local governance.
This tension may continue further up the political chain if cadres become
responsive but party secretaries do not, for example. Therefore, Li also posits
that increasing political efficacy may be evidence that the idea of political
power stems from the people is taking root among villagers, thereby also
changing villagers’ understanding of what constitutes political legitimacy.33
Similarly, some scholars also claim that the real significance of political
efficacy lies in villagers perceiving village elections as meaningful. When
villagers care about village elections and the quality of post-election
governance, they are more likely to continue to participate politically and
thereby influence cadres to similarly care about elections, as their offices are
at stake as a result. Villager political efficacy as a result theoretically
reinforces the congruence of villager and cadre views and opinions.34
However, some analysts present contrary evidence that enhanced
political efficacy may in some cases dissuade some voters from participation
in village elections. For example, Jie Chen and Yang Zhong contend that
more educated, internally efficacious voters are less inclined to vote in
elections if electoral procedures are viewed as poorly implemented,
fraudulent or only nominally democratic and of little significance to postLianjiang Li, “The Empowering Effect of Village Elections in China,” Asian Survey
Vol. 43, No. 4 (2003), pp. 648-662
34 Qingshan Tan and Xin Qiushui, “Village Elections and Governance: Do Villagers
Care?” Journal of Contemporary China (2007), pp. 581-599; Zhong Zishu and Wang
Yugang, “The Relationship Between Political Participation and Rural Grassroots
Unites in China,” Management Science and Engineering, Vol. 5, Issue 2, pp. 108-113
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election governance. More specifically they cite semi-competitive elections
and the local-government’s preclusion of fully inclusive, competitive elections
as a cause for politically efficacious, democratically oriented villagers to
abstain from voting in said elections. 35 Similarly, there is evidence that
poorly managed or unfair elections have a negative effect on villager support
for democratic self-government. Jens Kolhammar, for instance, posits that
poorly carried out elections may produce the exact opposite effect on voter
political efficacy, instead producing feelings of disaffection and apathy with
democratic processes. Kolhammar argues that so long as no concrete values
of democratic elections are demonstrated to villagers, democratic selfgovernance will fail to take root. This may, in other words, result in the
political alienation of villagers or resulting complacency of the villagers with
the political status quo.36
Accordingly, some scholars also take issue with the assumption that
village elections positively impact villager political efficacy. Some scholars
evidence a ‘disconnect’ between village electoral democracy and democratic
rights consciousness. As Zhaohui Hong contends, democratic electoral
procedures are thoroughly institutionalized throughout much of the
countryside, but villagers continue to understand very little of democracy and
that this results in the institutionalization of village elections as just a
meaningless formality.37 On a similar note, other analysts contend that the
institutionalization of village electoral democracy does not necessarily equate
to villagers becoming more conscious of democracy, but that the significance
of villager participation manifests itself in other ways. Tianjin Shi, for
instance, claims that while village elections improve a villager’s external
efficacy, they have little to no effect on internal efficacy. By this, Shi means
that the elections themselves do not result in the increase of a villager’s
understanding of politics, but increases their understanding that their
participation has an effect on the responsiveness of cadres.38
A sizable section of research also seeks to determine if a connection
exists between political efficacy and participation and villager attitudes
Jie Chen and Yang Zhong, “Why Do People Vote in Semicompetitive Elections in
China,” The Journal of Politics 60(1), (Feb. 2002), pp. 178-197
36 Jens Kolhammar, “Democracy Outmaneuvered: Village Self-Governance in
Yunnan Province,” China Elections and Governance Review, Issue 1 (2009), pp. 5-6
37 Zhaohui Hong, “’Three Disconnects’ and China’s Rural Election: A Case Study of
Hailan Village,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 39 (2006), pp. 29-32
38 Tianjin Shi, “Cultural Values and Democracy in Mainland China,” China
Quarterly 162 (Jun. 2000), pp. 540-549
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towards democracy, particularly in terms of popular demand for democracy.
That is, many scholars seek to determine whether regularly held village
elections influence popular demand for more democratic rights. A host of
analysts believe that villagers’ particular attitudes of support or nonsupport
for democracy are reliant on their “subjective orientations,” or in other words,
how external efficacy determines the assessment of whether democratic
electoral institutions have resulted in positive or negative effects for cadre
performance and local governance.39 David Zweig and Chung Siu Fung, for
example, find in their research of 120 village elections in Anhui and
Heilongjiang provinces that villagers generally demand more democratic
rights as a result of the economy performing well and the role of village selfgovernance in providing for economic growth.40
O’Brien suggests that elections have resulted in the increased villager
demand for more citizenship rights that they had not previously enjoyed. 41
Similarly, Gunter Schubert, in describing village elections as a “Trojan horse
of democracy,” claims that the right to vote has empowered villagers
politically and will in turn influence them to demand additional channels of
political participation. 42 Many place this increased demand for democratic
rights with the realization of villagers that electoral rights can also be used
in order to vote out unpopular, untrustworthy and heretofore-untouchable
cadres from office.43
Similarly, the general consensus among this school of thought is that
these rights, norms, and institutions, once granted and shared with the
peasantry, would become difficult for the party-state to retract without
considerable adversity. Hang Lin, for example, asserts that even if village
elections produce ineffective local governance, the democratic rights of
Jie Chen, “Popular Support for Village Self-Government in China,” Asian Survey,
(45)6, (2005), pp. 865-885
40 David Zweig and Chung Siu Fung, “Elections, Democratic Values, and Economic
Development in Rural China,” Journal of Contemporary China 16(50), pp. 25-45
41 Kevin J. O’Brien, “Implementing Political Reform,” The Australian Journal of
Chinese Affairs, No. 32 (1994), pp. 33-59; Kevin J. O’Brien, “Villagers, Elections, and
Citizenship in Contemporary China,” Modern China, 27:4 (Oct. 2001), pp. 425-429
42 Gunter Schubert, “Village Elections in the PRC: Trojan Horse of Democracy?”
Project discussion paper No. 19, Institute of East Asian Studies (2002)
43 Kevin J. O’Brien and Lianjiang Li, “The Politics of Lodging Complaints in Chinese
Villages,” China Quarterly 143 (Sep. 1995), pp. 756-783; Lianjiang Li and Kevin J.
O’Brien, “Villagers and Popular Resistance in Contemporary China,” Modern China
22:1 (January 1996), pp. 28-61; Lianjiang Li, “Distrust in Government Leaders,
Demand for Leadership Change, and Preference for Popular Elections in Rural
China,” Political Behavior (2011) 33, pp. 291-311
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Jace T. White
participation and voting become so institutionalized and entrenched among
the people that it would be counterintuitive for the party-state to retract
these rights.44Suzanne Ogden similarly argues that the institutionalization of
democratic procedures coupled with villagers’ active exercise of their rights of
participation in selecting village leadership will politicize and empower
China’s peasantry, who in turn will assume less passive roles in continuing
political reform. This sense of political efficacy and autonomy will
theoretically undergo increasing institutionalization throughout subsequent
election cycles and develop villager attitudes toward democracy.45
IV. Village Elections and Political Legitimacy
Having taken into account the principal implications of village
elections for the structures and dynamics of local governance as well as for
the rural voting population as well, this paper will similarly examine the
implications for the ruling party-state regime’s political legitimacy. In short,
legitimacy in terms of Chinese politics will refer to the general perception
that the ruling regime is lawful and should be obeyed. The issue of the partystate’s legitimacy is of particular significance to the future of political reform.
Whether the party-state can shore up and preserve its rural legitimacy in
many respects will determine if it can survive as the predominant political
authority in China.
Notions of political legitimacy in China have appropriately undergone
significant transformation since the onset of economic reforms. Specifically,
the fading specter of Maoist and socialist ideology as the raison d‘être of the
CCP had been replaced with the guiding paramount importance of ensuring
the progression of economic development. As a result, the foundation of the
party-state’s legitimacy shifted from ideologically-based to performancebased. In particular, the party-state’s legitimacy is largely reliant on its
performance in three key areas: promoting economic development,
Hang Lin, “A Mixed Bag of Results: Village Elections in Contemporary China,”
Asian Culture and History, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Jan. 2011), pp. 14-22
45 Suzanne Ogden, Inklings of Democracy in China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2002), pp. 183-220
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maintaining social order, and defending China’s national unity and
international status. 46
In providing the context for examining the Party-state’s rural
legitimacy, Thorenson suggests that analysis of legitimacy should be further
divided into two categories of internal and external. In this sense, internal
legitimacy refers to the efficacy of basic-level cadres in working loyally and
effectively towards the party-state’s agenda and avoiding corrupt behavior.
And in the external sense, legitimacy is determined by the support for and
acceptance of party-state rule by “the masses,” or simply the villagers.47
In many respects, the quality of local-level governance is an effective
indicator of whether village elections contribute to the legitimacy of the
party-state regime’s legitimacy. For instance, Schubert and Chen reference
their case studies of village elections in Lishu County, Jilin Province that
village-level democratic electoral practices contributes significantly to the
quality of local governance and increased social order and stability.48 That is
to say, whether or not village elections and the derivative norms and
institutions result in effective governance signifies the legitimacy of the rural
party-state political system. In terms of legitimacy, efficacious village selfgovernment reflects the party-state’s internal legitimacy and the involvement
of villagers in efficacious village self-government reflects the party-state’s
external legitimacy.
Forefront in developments to the party-state’s internal legitimacy is
also the gradual institutionalization of the party-state. This transformation
of the Chinese party-state from an ideologically based political authority to a
meritocratic, complex, and specialized “state-party” represents its
“sophistication” as the governing political body, so to speak. 49 The
institutionalization of the party-state particularly reflects the increasing
importance of meritocracy and efficacy in governance throughout the Chinese
political system. In this regard, party-state institutionalization reflects the
increasing importance of public participation institutions, namely those of
Stig Thorenson, “Parasites or Civilisers: The Legitimacy of the Chinese
Communist Party in Rural Areas,” China: An International Journal, 1(2) (Sep.
2003), pp. 200-223
47 Ibid. pp. 203
48 Gunter Schubert and Xuelian Chen, “Village Elections in Contemporary China
New Spaces for Generating Regime Legitimacy? Experiences from Lishu County,”
China Perspectives 3 (2007), pp. 12-27
49 Bruce Buena de Mesquita and George W. Downs, “Development and Democracy,”
Foreign Affairs 84(85), 2005; Yang Yao, “Chinese Way of Democratization,” China:
An International Journal, Vol. 8 No. 2 (2010)
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Jace T. White
village electoral democracy, in providing for the legitimacy of the Chinese
political system at large.50
Along the lines of the legitimating aspects of party-state intervention,
in many cases it was the reassertion of the local party secretary’s political
authority in village-level affairs that has resulted in more effective local
structures and dynamics of governance. In the case of Xinmi Township in
Guangdong province in 1986 and 1994, the local party secretary, in advance
of the Province’s approval, initiated the implementation of self-government
structures in its villages. The party secretary organized representative local
organizations that allowed villagers to vote on individual projects and voice
their opinions and interests. This trend of party-led efforts to install these
representative linkage institutions in most cases provided a stronger basis for
more effective structures of village self-governance. This in turn allowed the
party-state to shore up some lost legitimacy and to similarly create legitimate
self-government institutions. However, the villager committees in these same
villages in Guangdong are still strongly controlled by the party-state. This is
evidenced by the high percentage of village committee members that were
also members of the party. This demonstrates the cooptation of village selfgovernment posts to facilitate party control of local administration.51
Developments and innovation in village self-government represent
significant strides in the party-state’s rural legitimation as well. For
example, the party-state’s promotion of yijiantiao—or the concurrent holding
of the two offices of village committee chair and village party secretary—in
some villages reflects the de factor party-state acquisition of village
administration and village self-government.52 On a similar note, the “Twoballot system” signifies the legitimation of the party-state’s rural political
role as well, especially in regards to ensuring the institutionalization of
accountability, responsiveness, and competence in rural governance.
The institutionalization of village self-government may also be
evidence of an evolving federalist dynamic within the Chinese political
system. Specifically, this refers to the trends of decentralizing central partystate political power, or the increasing development of two distinct areas of
Andrew J. Nathan, “Authoritarian Resilience,” Journal of Democracy 14 (2003),
pp. 6-17
51 Richard Levy, “Village Elections, Transparency, and Anticorruption: Henan and
Guangdong Provinces,” in Grassroots Reform in Contemporary China, ed. Elizabeth
J. Perry et al. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007), pp. 22
52 Tan Qingshan, Village Elections in China, pp. 302
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the Chinese political system: the party-state on the macro level and village
self-government on the micro-level.
In recognizing that the institutionalization of democratic procedures,
institutions and norms in local government has resulted in more effective
governance, the trend of the withdrawal of certain party-state apparatuses,
namely the township government, has resulted to boosts in legitimacy in
some cases. While village-level governance may benefit from the continued
political presence and operations of the party branch, the continued
intervention of mid-level officials (i.e. townships) in many cases prevents
effective local governance. As a result, party-state legitimacy is closely tied to
the reduction of the role of township governments and higher government
strata in local-level governance.53
Furthermore, the “lowering of the center’s political legitimacy” as
phrased by Zheng Yongnian is evidence of a developing federalist system.
That is to say, directly due to the institutionalization of village democratic
elections, the lower a particular level of government is in the political
hierarchy the more legitimacy it enjoys. Grassroots-level governments are,
accordingly, empowered to take on their superiors because their legitimacy is
theoretically derived from the voting citizenry of the village rather than
political appointment from higher-ups. 54 This dynamic may be of special
significance in conferring the village committee the possible capability to
preclude township or party branch interference in effective, democratic
village self-government. In this way, village elections contribute to the
legitimate decentralization of the political system. The central party-state
retains its legitimate rule, but in terms of local governance, local government
officials in turn derive their political legitimacy from the voters through local
electoral institutions, norms and procedures.
Along the same lines, in consideration of the external legitimacy of the
party-state, among the most important components is the support and
approval of the villagers. Arguably, in village governance, it is the voting
villagers who play the most significant role in determining the external
legitimacy of local governance. Reinforcing norms and institutions of
accountability and responsiveness are among the most significant
implications of village elections for political legitimacy. The capacity of village
elections to hold village level cadres accountable and responsive to local
John James Kennedy, “Legitimacy with Chinese Characteristics: ‘Two Increases,
One Reduction’,” Journal of Contemporary China 18(60) (2009), pp. 391-395
54 Zheng Yongnian, Will China Become Democratic? Elite, Class, and Regime
Transition, Eastern Universities Press (2004), pp. 141
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Jace T. White
voters’ interests is one of the most obvious indicators of its contributions to
the party-state’s external legitimacy.
The institutionalization of representative institutions is a similarly
significant aspect of the legitimating effects of village self-government. As a
particularly important component of village self-government, the
institutionalization of representative channels in local governance allow for
both the effective representation of villager interests and the strengthening of
the party-state’s embeddedness in local governance.
Very notable are the representative electoral institutions that have a
hand in determining the local administration of economic and financial
affairs. Most significantly, village elections represent the representative
institutionalization of local economic affairs.55 As de-collectivization deprived
the state of traditional sources of revenue and facilitated China’s transition
from a rentier state to a tax-based state, the need for taxation by consent
necessitated the institutionalization of channels for representation. The
opening of these channels in turn contributes to the legitimation of the partystate’s local economic role. As an example, Yan Xiaojun references the
particular experience of the villages of “Q County” with the legitimating role
of representative economic institutions. Several village committees in Q
County became “mini-parliaments” of sorts, in several cases deciding on
important public issues and providing a check on party-state operations.
These village committees similarly acted as linkage institutions, or public
forums of sorts, allowing for the institutional channels necessary for effective
local level governance of economic concerns and issues. 56 Overall, the
development of “taxation with representation” reflects the legitimate
institutionalization of grassroots governance organizations.
Yan Xiaojun, “Democratizing power of Economic Reform,” Problems of PostCommunism, 58(3) (Jun. 2011), pp. 39-52
56 Ibid. pp. 43
55
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