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Electoral Institutions, Political Participation, and Grassroots Democracy in Rural China

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Electoral Institutions, Political Participation, and Grassroots Democracy in Rural China International Conference The Transformation of Citizen Politics and Civic Attitudes in Three Chinese Societies Panel Four Title of paper Electoral Institutions, Political Participation, and Grassroots Democracy in Rural China Presenter Szu-chien Hsu (Academia Sinica) My current academic interests focus on three issues. First, I focus on studying the nature of the current political regime in China. In a book I coauthored with several other Taiwanese scholars published recently, we used “degenerative totalitarianism” to describe the main feature of the current CCP regime. My second focus is to study the role of local government in economic development in coastal China. By combining the concepts of “developmental state” and “entrepreneurial state,” I raise “market state capitalism” as an analytical concept for this issue. The third focus is on the electoral institutions generated from the grassroots democracy in rural China. By tracing the evolution of the electoral institutions, I try to explain the logic of this evolution, and probe its democratic implication. Electoral Institutions, Political Participation, and Grassroots Democracy in Rural China Szu-chien Hsu Assistant Research Fellow Institute of Political Science, Academia Sinica Paper presented at the international conference of “The Transformation of Citizen Politics and Civic Attitudes in Three Chinese Societies” November 19-20, 2004 Taipei Organizer Institute of Political Science, Academia Sinica Co-sponsored by The Asian Barometer Survey Project, National Taiwan University Venue International Conference Room, Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica (Conference version. Please do not cite.) Electoral Institutions, Political Participation, and Grassroots Democracy in Rural China Szu-chien Hsu Assistant Research Fellow Institute of Political Science, Academia Sinica I. Introduction Village committee election in rural China has been held for more than twenty years. It has laid a solid foundation for China’s future democratization. The practice of village committee election has created a lot of new methods in nominating candidates and other electoral procedures. In general these new methods of electoral procedures have pushed the village electoral institutions to evolve toward a more democratic direction. However, there still exist many uncertainties, problems, and limitations of the village committee election. It is controversial that, first, whether the practice of China’s village committee election has been competitive and democratic, and second, whether China’s village committee election contributes to China’s democratization in general. These are the important contexts of discussing China’s village committee election in recent years. These questions are not only theoretically but also politically important. This paper intends to address these questions in both manners. By using the data from a nationwide survey,1 this paper focuses on the following questions in China’s village committee election. First, do democratic electoral institutions affect villagers’ behavior of voting and pre-voting political participation? Do democratic electoral institutions prompt villagers to vote the candidates nominated by the villagers? Do democratic electoral institutions increase villagers’ perception of the fairness of the election? Second, how do the village electoral institution affect the relationship between village committee and village party branch, or the “two-committee relationship” (liangwei guanxi, 兩委關係) as Chinese scholars call it. Third, how do the village electoral institutions and the “two-committee relationship” affect the governance of the village? Lastly, what are the implications of the practice of village I would like to thank Dr. Lin, Tse-min and Dr. Wu, Chin-en for their advices. I would also like to thank Mr. Shih Yi-ren for his assistance on statistic analysis. 1 Please refer to Appendix I for the data source of the survey. There are two sets of data. One is the individual data and another village data. Individual data is based on questionnaire interviewing individuals to acquire individual opinions and attitudes. Village data is based on questionnaire interviewing village cadres to acquire various aggregate features of the village. 1 election for China’s democratization in general? II. Achievements and problems of village committee election Achievements Since the revision of Article 111 of the “Constitution of People’s Republic of China” in 1982, it has been more than twenty years when the foundation for the village committee election and self-governance was laid. It has been seventeen years since 1987 when the “Organic Law of Village Committee of PRC (Trial Version)” was passed. In 1996, all the provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities under central government started to hold village committee elections together, some for the first time, and seventeen of them had already achieved three rounds by then. In year 2000, the “Organic Law of Village Committee of PRC” was formally put into practice. The past 22 years of practice of village committee election has at least accomplished the following achievements: 1. A firm legal foundation for village committee self-governance and election has been laid. 2. Legal concepts for village committee election among the villagers have basically been laid among the villagers. Villagers’ consciousness of voting as a political right has strengthened as village committee elections were held constantly every four years. The concept that village cadres gain their legitimate authority from villagers’ votes has taken roots in ordinary villagers’ mind. Many villagers are more and more familiar with their rights under the law and are willing to defend those rights by protesting, submitting petitions and going to court.2 3. Democratic electoral institutions such as “open nominations,” “secret ballots,” “more candidates than posts,” and “open vote tallying” have been basically assured in the procedure of village committee election, at least as legal principles.3 4. A team of local cadres and officials that are familiar with the practices of election has already been trained within villages. The most important is the fact that officials from the “Civic Affairs Office” of the provincial government have been 2 See Elizabeth Dugan，“Report of International Republican Institute to the US Congressional Executive Committee on China, Roundtable Discussion on Village Election on China,” July 8, 2002. <http://www.iri.org/7-8-02-asia-ld.asp>. This report states that “…Chinese villagers are more and more familiar with their rights under the law and are willing to defend those rights by protesting, submitting petitions and going to court.” 3 Ibid. 2 well trained and experienced in terms of knowledge and skills in managing the electoral administration. These provincial-level officials have been a stable and strong back-bone for promoting village committee election all over the country. 5. Competitive elections have taken places in villages in many provinces. Self-nomination or villagers’ nomination have become more and more common to replace the old method of “negotiation” in creating the candidates. 6. The village committee election has prompted some villages to accommodate the participation of villagers in the process of election of the village party branch cadres. According to the “Constitution of the Chinese Communist Party,” the leading cadres of the village party branch are supposed to be elected by the party members in the village and ratified by the township level party committee. Accordingly, ordinary villagers are not allowed to participate in the process of party branch cadre election. However, due to the fact that village committee cadres are already elected by all the villagers, some of the village party branch cadres have felt pressures to accommodate the villagers’ participation. For example, in Suizhou (Precinct-level) City, village party branches have adopted the “Two-vote System” to elect the party branch secretary. The first vote is actually a “confidence vote” from the ordinary villagers to the party members in the village. The preliminary candidates for party branch secretary are decided according to the votes all the village party members get. In short, the two party members who get the highest votes shall become the candidates. Then the village party members shall cast their vote to elect the party branch secretary among the candidates.4 7. The village committee election has also the effect of speeding up the experiment of direct election for not only township head but also more democratic election for township party secretary. Since the most famous case of direct election for township head in Buyun Township, Sichuan Province, there have been more than ten cases of this kind of experiment of direct election for township head.5 In recent years, there have also been some cases in which more democratic electoral institutions are introduced to the election of township party secretary. In most of these cases the nominations were opened to ordinary party members, and open 4 Wang, Xuejiang, “Two-vote system and the direct election of village party branch secretary,” China Elections and Governance, June 25, 2004, <http://www.chinaelections.org/readnews.asp?newsid= {C07AC805-CD82-4CA9-AD72-7D2810D25836}>。 5 Shi, Weimin (2000), Public Election and Direct Election: Studies of Township Head Direct Electoral Institutions (公選與直選：鄉鎮長人大選舉制度研究), Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe; Li, Fan (2003), Ride with
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