Democracy outmanoeuvred: Village self-governance in China: A case study (summary)
Author(s): Jens Kolhammar
Posted: 2008-7-10
Source:www.chinaelections.net
Source date:2008-7-10
Number of hits:2135
Village elections in the Chinese countryside are a reform that has gained a lot of attention from researchers and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). This began in 1987 when the provisional organic law on village committees was approved (hereinafter referred to as the VC election law or the organic law). This law, extended and made permanent in 1998, outlines that the village committee members in every Chinese village are to be elected by the villagers. The spread of the reform has been faster than many observers predicted; already in 1993 a nationwide survey revealed that 75.8 percent of the respondents had held an election in their respective villages.[1]
This reform has given rise to speculation, primarily from western researchers, on whether or not the elections in the countryside can help smooth a process of democratization on a wider scale in China[2] and research has highlighted the positive effects that village elections have on rural dwellers. Village elections are said to empower[3] villagers as they enable them to change their situation by voting disliked cadres out of office and lodging complaints against unfair elections and the like.[4]
However, at the same time there are widespread indications of local cadres manipulating the elections and of concurrent office holding, i.e. village committee (VC) chairs holding the position of both the local party secretary or vice secretary.[5] Furthermore, one survey with 8,302 rural dwellers conducted by O'Brien and Li showed that only 45 % of the respondents believed that the members of their VC had been elected.[6] Research also suggests that the village election reform is lacking in many areas and that many rural dwellers are losing faith in the reform.[7] Consequently, the quality of the village elections is not certain and it seems that much effort is needed before all the villages in the Chinese countryside have genuine self-governance.
Yunnan province is an area of China where the village self-governance reform has been the least implemented[8], and a region where many villagers seem unaware of the responsibilities that their VC should have.[9] This study examines a VC in Yunnan province that, at the time when the fieldwork was conducted, had held only one election. The quality of the VC is studied to see how well the village self-governance reform has been implemented and if the VC election law is deficient in any area.
The study found several indications that the village election and the village committee in the villages under study were far from fair and democratic. For example:
- The VC in the villages consists of the chair, the vice chair, the women leader, the economic leader, and the big leader. These are all, except the women leader who was appointed, supposed to be elected by the villagers in all the nine natural villages.[10] Subordinate to the village committee or, to be more specific, under the big leader are 11 small group leaders that are elected by their respective villages by the principle of 'one family one vote'. However, it became apparent that the chair and the vice chair were the only influential members that sat on the VC when talking to the VC chair. He told us that he generally spoke to the vice chair several times a week but that the whole VC only met around two times a year and that these meetings always were at the same time as the party meetings. In other words, the VC seldom met and when they finally did meet, they were not able to discuss issues in the village in private. By comparison, the local party members generally met at least once a month.
- When talking to members of the VC (except the chair and the vice chair) they expressed that they did not have a clear idea of what their tasks were. One person we interviewed even told us that she was a member of the VC while others, including the chair of the VC, told us that she was not. In the case of the small group leaders, they had generally a clear idea of what they were supposed to do in their own natural village but had no idea about the actual tasks of the VC. For instance, one question that evoked many different answers among VC members and small group leaders alike was a question about what kind of public resources the VC was in charge of. The answers ranged from electricity fees to public land and some even admitted that they had no idea. The answer given by the chair of the VC-- that they had forest, which they could cut down if some villagers were in need of extra resources -- was given by him alone.
- One of the areas where people seemed especially confused was the nomination process. The government at the township level gave one explanation on the procedures and the VC chair gave another one. A small group leader, who also had been a member of the election committee and should have been involved in the whole election process, still had no idea how the candidates had been nominated. He remembered that they had had one election where they wrote down names previous to the second election but he did not know where these tickets had gone. In addition, when talking to other villagers and small leaders about the nomination procedure we often got very different or avoiding answer.
- A number of indications from different sources suggested that the election of the chair had not been conducted in a fair manner. The chair seemed highly disliked among the villagers and many of the villagers who were interviewed believed that the chair worked only for his personal benefit. Several of the villagers we spoke to also said that they thought the chair had bought votes in the election and one person told us that the chair had even destroyed votes. The same villager told us that the chair had only gotten 12 out of the possible 300 votes in the natural village where she lived. Moreover, among the villagers, even counting the small leaders and the VC members, there existed confusion about the requirements for the position of VC chair. According to the VC election law anybody who is over 18 and not deprived of political rights can be elected to the position of chair of the VC (see section 3). Nonetheless, several of the villagers thought that the chair had to be a party member. It remains unknown if the 2003 election in the villages actually had a rule that the VC chair had to be a party member. Even so, that many villagers had an inadequate knowledge in the VC election law was certain.
It appears that the local party branch and the chair and vice chair of the VC were able to use feigned compliance [11] in their favour to remain in power. The law can be seen as just a small inconvenience for the local cadres which they have managed to circumvent. Several of the issues concerning the VC and the election for the VC seemed to be in place just for appearance – the nomination procedure, the few VC meetings, and the lower VC members – which entails that the power holders were skilled in manipulating within the institution and outmaneuvering other interests.
Without a closer scrutiny from higher levels of the Chinese government the power holders can continue to decide the agenda in the informal arena, as all the formal elements of the VC were, to a degree, in place in the villages. And since the Ministry of Civil Affairs - the greatest proponent of the law – has a limited reach out to rural areas, the local cadres should have no problem maintaining their present favorable situation.
Even though the villagers, as well as many of the elected, seemed interested in the procedures of election, they were, nonetheless, unaware of the actual rights that the organic law provided. Local cadres and party officials had a lot of room to manoeuvre since the villagers lacked knowledge of the organic law and did not know how to manoeuvre within the institution (plus the fact that the government on township level was uninterested in the village election). So, the old local power holders were able to decide the agenda in the village and in the village committee and matters seemed to be run in pretty much the same way they had been before the elections. Consequently, the equalisation of power that the village self-governance reform could bring forth did not materialize in any substantial degree in the villages.
However, a shift of power away from the old power holders towards the villagers might be able to materialize. It has, after all, been happening in numerous locations in the Chinese countryside in the form of, for example, elections where old corrupt cadres have been voted out of office and in instances where unfair elections have been revoked. Time itself could perhaps work in favour of more democratic VC elections. However, research has revealed that if VC elections are undemocratic and do not bring any real effects, villagers become uninterested in these elections.[12] Moreover, the analysis of the VC in the villages under study illuminates that there are a number of obstacles in the way for genuine village self-governance which need to be considered. The organic law itself puts some obstacles in the way as it outlines that the VC is under the rule of the party, plus the fact that it leaves a number of the election procedures to be sketched out within the local provinces or even -- as seen in this study -- by the local elite on the village level. Some of these issues could be resolved, as discussed above, by clearly formulating the procedure on how the candidates should be nominated, how and by whom the votes should be counted, how the VC meetings should be conducted, and by removing the article that states that the VC is under the rule of the party.
On the other hand, it should be said that anticipating these changes might be asking for too much in too short a time. The Ministry of Civil Affairs has purposely taken the reform of village elections slowly, in a step-by-step approach, as there are still many opponents to the VC election law. Reaching for too much could perhaps jeopardise the whole undertaking of villager self-governance. But, on the other hand, if the organic law is too watered-down it might only, as in the case of the first election in the villages under study, create elections that are only for the sake of appearance. In such cases villagers will not see any practical use in these elections, a fact that also undermines the idea of villager self-governance.
Villagers are seen as important actors to strengthen the reform of villager self-governance in the Chinese countryside. But as long as they do not see any concrete value in the elections they will not become influential actors in defending the organic law. This essay argues that knowledge of the organic law and the divided Chinese state on the issue would give villagers greater power to influence local matters and, in addition, could make them more interested in the elections as then they could more easily see its practical use. But research on how this knowledge is spread in the first place in areas where rightful resistance [13] have materialized and how knowledge could be spread to areas where the old disliked elite still manage to cling to power is lacking and greatly needed. More specifically, research is needed that focuses on how the higher Chinese state, grant makers, and NGOs could operate to give villagers insight into the new rights that the organic law has given them.
[1] Shi, Tianjian, 1999. "Village Committee Elections in China: Institutional Tactics for Democracy", in World Politics vol. 51, issue 3, pp 385-412.
[2] Schubert, Gunter, 2002. Village elections in PRC – A Trojan Horse of Democracy. University of Duisburg.
[3]As the term empowerment has been used in a variety of ways in academic literature I feel that a clarification is needed; in this essay Batliwala's definition of empowerment is used. Her definition of empowerment reads as follows "the process of challenging existing power relations, and of gaining greater control over the sources of power" (Batliwala quoted in Parpart 2002:339)
[4] See for instance: Li, Lianjiang, 2003. "The Empowering Effect of Village Elections in China", in Asian Survey vol. 43, issue 4, pp. 648-662., O'Brien, Kevin J., 2001. "Villagers, Elections, and Citizenship in Contemporary China", in Modern China vol. 27. issue 4, pp. 407-435.
[5] Kelliher, Daniel, 1997. "The Chinese Debate Over Village Self-Government", in The China Journal issue 37. pp. 63-86.
[6] O'Brien, Kevin J. & Li, Lianjiang, 2000. "Accommodating "Democracy", in a One Party State: Introducing Village Elections in China" in The China Quarterly issue 162, Special Issue: Elections and Democracy in Greater China pp. 456-489.
[7] Chan, Sylvia 2003. "Villagers' Representative Assemblies: Towards Democracy or Centralism?", in China: An International Journal vol. 1, issue 2, pp. 179-199.
[8] O'Brien, Kevin J. & Li, Lianjiang, 2000. "Accommodating "Democracy", in a One Party State: Introducing Village Elections in China" in The China Quarterly issue 162, Special Issue: Elections and Democracy in Greater China pp. 456-489.
[9] Saich, Tony, 2004. Governance and Politics of China. Hampshire: PALGRAVE MACMILLAN.
[10] The village committee consists of nine, so called, natural villages. The VC election law underlines that VC generally are organized in one natural village but the law also mentions that the VC can consist of a number of natural villages.
[11] Daniel Kelliher uses the words feigned compliance to illustrate the manner local cadres are implementing village elections, as a number of cadres are only enforcing the elections by name. Kelliher, Daniel, 1997. "The Chinese Debate Over Village Self-Government", in The China Journal issue 37. pp. 63-86.
[12] He, Baogang, 2006. "A Survey Study of Voting Behaviour and Political Participation in Zhejiang" in Japanese Journal of Political Science vol. 7 issue. 3 pp. 225–250
[13] Rightful resistance was coined by Kevin O'Brien and means: "[A] form of popular contention that (1) operates near the boundary of an authorized channel, (2) employs the rhetoric and commitments of the powerful to curb political or economic power, and (3) hinges on locating and exploiting divisions among the powerful." O'Brien, Kevin J., 1996. "Rightful Resistance", in World Politics vol. 49, issue 1, pp. 31-55.
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