Village elections, grassroots governance and the restructuring of state power : an empirical study in southern peri-urban China

Abstract

China's urbanization has revitalized grassroots governance under which millions of villagers have become increasingly keen to participate in grassroots elections and influence decision making in their village affairs. To maintain its political legitimacy over a rapidly transforming society, the authoritarian party-state has progressively promoted open, competitive grassroots elections in response to the increasing demand by villagers for more public participation. Based on in-depth field research in urbanizing villages in southern China, this article provides an empirical analysis of how the local state has adopted different interventionist strategies in elections to support villagers' active participation while sustaining its direct leadership over daily village governance. Our findings explain why the recent development of open and transparent grassroots elections is reinforcing the ruling capacity of the socialist state rather than enhancing self-governance and grassroots democracy, although villagers now have more opportunities to defend their economic and social rights through elections. 中国快速城市化的进程激发出基层治理的活力，数以百万计的村民参与基层选举积极性越来越高，村民对村务决策影响力不断提升。为了维 护政治合法性，执政党积极推动公开和竞争性的基层选举，以顺应村民对公共参与日益增长的需求。基于在华南地区城市化村庄的深度田野调查，本文对地方政府在选举中采取的干预策略进行了实证分析，重点剖析当地政府如何在支持村民积极参与的同时，加强了对日常村庄管理的直接领导。研究结果解释了为什么公开透明的基层选举强化的是执政党的国家治理能力而不是村民自治和基层民主，尽管村民被赋予了更多的投票机会来捍卫他们的权益。