BOOK REVIEW
One mainland, two systems
Rural Democracy in China by Baogang He
Reviewed by Sreeram Chaulia
February 2, 2008
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/JB02Ad01.html
Since the formal promulgation of the Organic Law of Village Committees
in 1987, about 800 million rural Chinese have experienced
semi-competitive elections. Due to the domination of communist party
cadres over representative assemblies, skepticism about village
elections is justified. Yet, the experiment of participatory
institutions within the Chinese authoritarian state tests cynics who
insist that the two cannot coexist.
Using extensive data gathered in 12 years of field research, political
scientist Baogang He argues in a new book that progress has been made
in China's grassroots governance and power structures. In the same
breath, he cautions against exaltation of village democracy's
benefits, since it is "an instrumental mechanism for the continuation
of Chinese resilient authoritarianism". (p7)
The Chinese government's theory of village democracy combines
authoritarian ideas of self-government under tight party control with
liberal ideas of free and fair elections by secret ballot. He reminds
readers of an alternative "Chinese folk theory" that expects tempering
of the rich and caring for the disadvantaged groups in the village.
This is the normative ideal against which he juxtaposes the actual
practice of grassroots democratic experiments.
The 1987 Organic Law took three years and over 30 revisions of drafts
before being passed. After several rounds of contested debates over
whether rural China needs elections, it was converted from
"provisional" into final law only in 1998. Attempts to legislate an
independent electoral commission have so far run into determined
obstruction from various layers of the government. The state "ensures
its significant presence in the whole process of elections" through
its point persons on the ground, the village party secretaries.
While these structural roadblocks remain, they are being resisted by
villagers who often do not vote for candidates handpicked by the
party. Beginning in Jilin province in 1993, villagers invented and
practiced haixuan, or direct nomination of candidates, a move that
proved to be highly successful in solving administrative problems such
as the common rural refusal to pay taxes and fees. Since 1999, the
dismissal by recall of corrupt village heads and committee members by
majority vote before completion of their terms has risen in frequency.
The question of who is a "villager" and an eligible voter has become
increasingly problematic in the context of China's rapid economic
growth. Fighting for villager status implies staking claim for a share
of the collective wealth and welfare provisions. Large-scale migration
in and out of villages has generated a floating population that is not
recognized as part of the electorate. If decisions of voter
eligibility are left to village assemblies, it can lead to
discrimination against minority groups. This type of iniquity has
increased the need for local courts to "intervene and counterbalance
the majoritarian tendencies of democratic institutions". (p51) The
author sees in these developments the emergence of a "rights-based
political morality".
Progressively, the competition of village elections has shifted from
single to multiple candidates. In some cases, the competition is so
stiff that no candidate is able to win an absolute majority. The rate
of re-election of incumbents is declining and the names of winners are
no longer foregone conclusions before voting takes place. Although
Chinese officials denounce election campaigning as "bourgeois",
villagers express a desire for it in order to make better choices.
Political marketplace
Generally, He finds greater electoral competition in richer villages
because they allocate handsome salaries and allowances for holders of
posts. In these villages, "different groups with their interests are
able to compete for power, thereby forming a political market". (p64)
However, wherever the communist party branch has the keys to economic
resources, competition is low. Wealthier villagers also score better
in degree of political participation since the economic prize of
obtaining power is bigger. Village committees also function more
efficiently in prosperous villages because of their healthier budgets.
The main policy inference from He in this context is that "for village
democracy to work, the rural economy needs to be improved". (p174)
Although voter turnout in village elections has been high, it could be
the result of rewards between 5 to 60 yuan (US$0.70 $8.30) as
compensation for lost labor or of inducements of government officials
anxious to achieve quotas. A 2005 survey found 25% of the respondents
to be apathetic to the electoral process. This is in sync with the
government's predisposition for "orderly participation" so that
discipline and obedience are not upturned.
A majority of villagers cast votes for candidates who can develop the
local economy. Rural entrepreneurs and directors of private
enterprises frequently get elected as village heads. Quite a high
percentage of voters also choose candidates considered to have high
moral standard and character. The author notes a movement away from
kinship ties as a basis of vote choice, heralding "modern village
citizenship". (p79) This is occurring despite the post-Mao
resurrection of lineage identities in a milieu of looser ideological
supervision.
Local officials and party secretaries looked at villager
representative meetings as threats to their own power, but these have
grown more active since 2000. In parts of Guangdong province,
representative assemblies are the highest village power institutions
that are impervious to manipulation by party cadres. Fears held by
critics that representative assemblies were undermining the ideal of
direct democracy are being answered with innovative solutions like
"village opinion cards" and weekly dialogues.
Private capitalists and the new rich invariably run representative
assemblies like exclusive elite clubs. Township authorities "take
pains to train the rich man into a politician, name him as candidate,
and help him get elected". (p106) The nouveau riche who get elected
have to balance pressures from above (party officials) and below
(voters). Some village heads even put the villagers' interests before
those of the township authorities. However, He's survey reveals that
only 15% of village heads think they have more power than the party
secretary. The party maintains its hegemony through its legally
defined "leading role" and by its grip on the economic resources of
the village.
Thanks to China's patriarchal family structure, women's participation
in village democracy is relatively low. Democratic methods are
regularly used to deny women who marry into other villages the rights
to vote and receive economic benefits. The number of female village
committee members has been decreasing since 1998. The few who do get
into office are allocated secondary roles that match alleged "female
qualities". In the face of societal prejudices against women in public
affairs, affirmative action policies of the Chinese legal system have
not gone far.
Township leaders play a complex role in China's rural democracy. By
law, they administer, arbitrate and oversee the conduct of village
elections. Yet, some of them oppose village elections as hindrances in
implementation of party policies in the countryside. The author found
township officials holding beliefs that "villagers have no interest in
elections because what they care most is to make more money". (p148) A
number of them are evolving sophisticated ways of manipulating village
elections from behind the scenes, prompting He to coin the label,
"democratic Machiavellianism".
The author concludes with the big question of whether village
elections could extend to townships through a "moving-up process". The
answer is relevant to the issue of democratization of the Chinese
state organization itself. Village elections raise doubts about the
legitimacy of appointed township leaders, reflecting "internal
tensions between the electoral logic and the authoritarian logic".
(p201)
Sporadic incidences of direct voting for the positions of township
heads and party secretaries have been occurring since 1998, but with
serious deficiencies. A small "leading group" of the party
organization usually manufactures the outcomes of these events. Among
the central leadership, former premier Zhu Rongji and Premier Wen
Jiabao have expressed support for township elections but the National
People's Congress and the Central Party Organization have shot down
the balloon owing to fear that they could "threaten a rapid unraveling
of CCP [Chinese Communist Party] authority". (p211)
In He's judgement, most Chinese villagers today enjoy formalistic
democracy but are a long way from substantive democracy. Village
democracy is distant from "state democracy" and has had little impact
on the Chinese state's governance at the macro-level. Using the
comparisons of the Philippines, Indonesia and Taiwan, which also
introduced local elections within authoritarian states, He predicts
that it will take several more years before a national election can
happen in China.
The author characterizes Chinese authoritarianism with limited
democratic elements as a "mixed regime" that, despite contradictions,
fortifies the CCP's supremacy. "One Country, Two Systems" has been
applied in Chinese legend to offshore territories Hong Kong and Macau.
He's study does not use this particular formulation but allows it to
be employed to describe the mainland's political system as well. His
book offers a salutary check on tendencies to assess China solely on
the basis of national level trends.
Rural Democracy in China. The Role of Village Elections by Baogang He,
Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2007. ISBN: 978-0-230-60016-4. Price:
US$74.95, 277 pages.
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