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FISCAL STRESS AND POLITICAL ORDER IN RURAL CHINA: LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND PEASANT PROTEST IN HUNAN IN THE 1990s AND BEYOND A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Wu Zhang May 2009 © 2009 Wu Zhang FISCAL STRESS AND POLITICAL ORDER IN RURAL CHINA: LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND PEASANT PROTEST IN HUNAN IN THE 1990s AND BEYOND Wu Zhang, Ph.D. Cornell University 2009 Based on more than two years of ethnographic fieldwork in Hunan, the prototype of rural China, this dissertation explains why a predatory state emerged in China at the village, township, and county levels in the 1990s. It also explores patterns of peasant resistance to the predatory state and analyzes the impact of peasant protest on local and national rural policies. The local government in rural China experienced a profound fiscal crisis in the 1990s. Because of internal corruption and competition from the private sector, the public sector collapsed, depriving local governments of their main source of revenue. The tax-sharing system adopted in 1994 and various unfunded central mandates significantly increased local fiscal responsibilities. The fiscal crisis induced local governments to impose ever-increasing taxes and fees on peasants. The rise of the predatory local state led to widespread peasant discontent. In only a few cases, however, did peasants succeed in mounting sustained protest against the local government. This happened when peasants sensed an opening in the political opportunity structure and when peasant leaders emerged. Protests usually started when peasants acquired central documents on lowering peasant burdens, which they used to argue that they had the right to withhold taxes and fees. Peasant leaders were ―peasant cadres‖ and ―peasant intellectuals,‖ who were better-educated than other peasants and who had worked for the party-state at some point in their lives. As a result, they could speak and write well. They also had good knowledge of party polices, which allowed them to challenge the interpretative framework of the local government without appearing to question the legitimacy of the party-state. Finally, they provided a shield of protection for their fellow villagers. The state eventually repressed most protests by jailing protest leaders. However, protestors sometimes obtained economic concessions from the local government. Moreover, in the 2000s, the central government reformed rural public finance and introduced subsidies to peasants and local governments (the ―tax-for-fee reform‖ and the policy of ―constructing the new socialist countryside‖). This cycle of revenue maximization, resistance, and reform illuminates the interactive and mutually transformative relationship between the state and society in China. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Zhang Wu was born in 1970 in Hunan province in the People‘s Republic of China. She grew up on the campus of a teachers‘ training college built in the midst of the rice paddies of south China as a result of Chairman Mao‘s policy of bringing higher education to the doorsteps of peasants. In 1988, she was admitted to Beijing University, where she graduated with a B.A. in international relations in 1992. In 1994, she joined the many Chinese students who continued their education in the United States, entering the graduate program in political science at the University of Oregon. In 1996, she transferred to the Ph.D. program in government at Cornell University. In 2001–2003 and again in 2004–2005, she returned to Hunan to do field research on local government and peasant protest in rural China. This dissertation is based on hundreds of hours of interviews with peasants and cadres that she conducted during these field trips, supplemented by government documents and statistics. Zhang Wu teaches East Asian politics at Union College. In her spare time, she likes to play table tennis and to read The Dream of the Red Chamber. iii For my parents, Zhang Xiaolin and Wang Shunhong iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This thesis has benefited from the advice and help of many people in the United States and China. I would like to thank Professor Mary Katzenstein, who encouraged my interest in local government and peasant protest in developing countries. She has also been the most supportive dissertation chair imaginable. My work on the thesis began under the guidance of Professor Vivienne Shue, now at Oxford University. Her nuanced understanding of state-society relations in China has strongly influenced my thinking about Chinese politics. Professor Valerie Bunce encouraged me to think comparatively by turning one case (China) into many and by comparing China with other (post-) Communist countries. Professor Isaac Kramnick helped me to see the broader normative issues raised by my dissertation. Professor Andrew Mertha shared with me his vast knowledge of bureaucratic politics in China. Professor Ronald Herring was an incisive and generous outside reader. Aleksander Lust and Jill Marie edited the thesis and improved it in the process. I gratefully acknowledge the funding from Cornell‘s East Asia Program and the Peace Studies Program, which allowed me to carry out more than two years of field research in China. Institutional support during the fieldwork was provided by the School of Public Policy and Management at Qinghua University and the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. I thank Professor Jing Jun, Professor Vivienne Shue, Dr. Tao Ran, Professor Zhu Tianbiao, and Professor Fu Jun for their help in securing letters of introduction. I would also like to thank my family and friends in China. The extended Zhang and Wang families in Hunan gave me a crash course on rural public finance and introduced me to fellow villagers and rural cadres. My classmates and friends Gong Yanzi, Tian Mingchun, Zang Zhifan, Chen Zhou, Tao Yu, Liu Fang, Li Qingfeng, v Chen Xixiang, Liu Huijun, Zhou Jue, and Zhou Jian helped me to arrange numerous interviews and reminded me that there was life outside the dissertation. My brother Zhang Yu accompanied me during several field trips and provided much-needed encouragement. My elder sister Zhang Yao and her husband Cao Dongbo were a valuable source of information and contacts. My younger sister Zhang Zheng shared her apartment with me and joined me for a trip to Western China. My husband Aleksander Lust shared all the joys and pains of writing the thesis. Above all, I thank the hundreds of ordinary peasants, protest leaders and local cadres in Hunan, who helped me to understand the Chinese political economy from the ground up. I dedicate the dissertation to my parents, Zhang Xiaolin and Wang Shunhong. I can never repay their love and support, but I hope that this project will make them proud of their daughter. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................ v LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................... xiii LIST OF TABLES ..................................................................................................... xiv INTRODUCTION: WHAT MAKES LOCAL GOVERNMENT WORK AND WHAT MAKES PEASANTS REBELLIOUS? ......................................................... 1 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1 Research Questions .................................................................................................. 3 Dissertation Fieldwork and Goals ........................................................................... 7 Part I: What Makes Local Government Work? .................................................. 10 Part II: What Makes Peasants Rebellious? .......................................................... 13 The Emergence of Protest .................................................................................. 13 Organization and Network ................................................................................ 18 Interpretative Framework ................................................................................. 23 Part III: An Interactive Model of the Chinese Political Economy ..................... 28 Political Economy and Peasant Protest ................................................................ 32 Definitions ............................................................................................................... 34 Data, Methodology, and Perspectives ................................................................... 35 Why Hunan? ....................................................................................................... 35 Confronting My Own Biases ............................................................................. 38 Fieldwork ............................................................................................................. 39 Overview of the Empirical Argument .................................................................. 42 Chapter Outline ...................................................................................................... 45 CHAPTER 1: MARKET REFORM AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN RURAL CHINA ......................................................................................................................... 49