Manipulation without resistance : consensus elections in rural China

Abstract

The Chinese Communist Party has been increasing its control over village elections since the early 2010s, yet this move has not triggered any widespread popular resistance. Drawing on ethnographic evidence from village elections held in 2017 in a county in Hunan province, I conceptualize a form of electoral manipulation I term “consensus elections,” in which the Party engineers a pre-electoral consensus with ordinary villagers on whom to select while deterring challenges from village elites. Consensus elections are rooted in the Chinese political elites’ ideal that favours electoral participation over competition. While participation increases regime legitimacy, competition threatens regime authority. Propaganda promoting this electoral ideal shapes the views of ordinary villagers, laying a basis of legitimacy on consensus elections. The villagers embraced voting as being oriented by a unitary common interest and developed a cynicism whereby campaigning was equated with corruption. Comparison of the processes involved in engineering consensus elections in five villages suggests popular support for such elections. Whereas popular resistance was mounted against the lack of participation, popular complicity helps the Party to deter challenges from village elites. Consensus elections have facilitated the fall of Chinese village elections without undermining the Party's legitimacy, but consensus elections will also encourage more political challenges from village elites through non-institutionalized channels. 中共对村庄选举的控制自 2010年代初以来在不断加强。这种控制为何没有引起民众广泛的抵制呢？通过对 2017 年湖南某县村庄选举的民族志研究，我提出了一种选举操纵的形式：共识选举。共识选举指的是在选举前党在普通村民之间就“应该选谁”制造一种共识，同时阻止村庄精英挑战这一共识。共识选举植根于中国政治精英的选举理想，即要参与不要竞争。参与有利于增加政权的合法性，但竞争会威胁到政权的稳定。对这一选举理想的政治宣传塑造了普通村民的选举观念，从而为共识选举奠定了合法性基础。村民们认为投票应是为了实现单一的共同利益，并且毫无差别地将竞争等同于腐败。我通过比较党在五个村庄实现共识选举的不同过程来证明村民对这种选举操纵的支持。当一些村庄的选举缺乏参与时，村民做出了各种形式的反抗。然而在另一些村庄，当村民的 “共识”遭到村庄精英的挑战时，村民会与党合谋来遏制这种的挑战。共识选举在强化党对村庄选举控制的同时维护了其合法性，但共识选举也将促使村庄精英转向非制度化渠道来提出政治挑战。