Making democracy work the crafting and manipulation of chinese village democracy by political elites 5

Chapter 5 Practicing: “Village Politicians” and Village
Elections

If village self-governance is to become a vibrant and powerful institution,
rather than merely another formalistic addition to Chinese public agencies, it would
have to outgrow its origins: village elites’ supports and crafting as well as village
committee leaders’ gaining greater independence. China’s village self-governance is
indeed a process of democracy led by state’s elites, but the mere crafting of
democracy by the higher authority’s elites, who are external elites to villagers, is not
enough, however. External elite-led village democracy needs internal elites’ support
and co-operation.
After having reviewed the literature on village elections and self-governance,
unfortunately, we find there are at least two obvious limitations. First, many studies
focus on explaining village election itself such as voter registration, voting, who
opposes it, and who takes great effort to conduct it. But few have attempted to find out
which factors have made this electoral institution work after all. Second, most studies
lay special emphasis on analyzing and exploring political signification and outcomes
of village elections, but there are few studies on how village elites reshape village
power structures, and create new institutions or election procedures during the
campaigning for village leadership positions. Some works touched on the political
elites’ roles and their crafting
1
, yet, comprehensive and detailed studies on village

1
There has been some literature on this issue. Examples include Xu Yong, “Minzhuhua jincheng zhong
di zhengfu zhudongxing: sichuansheng dachuanshi cunmin zizhi shifan huodong diaocha yu sikao”
(“Active Government in the Process of Rural Democratization: A Case Study of Dachuan City, Sichuan
Province”), Zhanlue yu guanli (Strategy and Management), no.3 (Beijing: 1997): 68-74; Wu Yi, “Zhidu
yinru yu jingying zhudao: minzhi xuejiu guize zai cunluo changyu de yanyi” (“Institutions’ Introduction
and Elites’ Domination: How Democratic Electoral Rules be Exercised in a Village Arena”), Huazhong

shifan daxue xuebao (Journal of Central China Normal University) (Humanities and Social Sciences),

187
elites are still lacking. Obviously, without an understanding of rural elites’ crafting,
any description of rural democracy landscape in China will be incomplete. The main
body of village democracy promoted by official leaders is after all thousands upon
thousands’ villages, while village elites are the leading roles of village democratic
practices.
Behavior is a crucial link between institutions and outcomes. At a village level,
what is important is that village democracy needs villagers’ and particularly village
elites’ democratic practices, while the crafting of rural democracy is achieved through
the process of how to rise to power, how to stay in power, and how to pass it on in
village elections. This chapter examines the roles of village elites and their practices in
village elections. In the first section, I focus on the elites and power structures in the
village, attempting to present institutional power and elite structures as the
background against which village elections take place. Next, I describe and analyse
the roles, context, and strategies of village elites. In the third section, I will analyse the
dominant position of the Party branch in village and in particular the secretary and his
or her role in village elections. Then, I will discuss village election campaigns in the
fourth section. Finally, before making a conclusion, I will look at the village elites’
innovations, focusing on the case of villagers’ representative assembly.

5.1 Village Power Structure and Elites’
Configuration
Since the implementation of village elections and self-governance, the local
power structure, leadership strategies and styles have indeed changed significantly.

Vol.38, no.2 (Wuhan, 1999): 10-17; Tong Zhihui, “Nongmin xuanju canyu zhong de jingying
dongyuan” (“Elites’ Mobilization in Peasants’ Participation in Village Elections”), Shehuixue yanjiu
(Sociological Studies), no.1 (Beijing: 2002): 1-9; Anne F. Thurston, “Muddling toward Democracy:

Political Change in Grassroots China,” Untied States Institute of Peace, Peaceworks 23 (1998); Shi
Tianjian, “Village Committee Elections in China: Institutionalist Tactics for Democracy,” World
Politics 51 (April 1999): 385-412.

188

5.1.1. The Current Village Power Organizations
Since the collapse of the people’s communes in the early 1980s and the
implementation of village self-governance, four organizations have become central to
village-level life: the party branch, village committee, the villagers-assembly and the
villagers-representative assembly, and economic cooperative. These four
organizations make up the village power structure. We here explain these
organizations with the help of the following table (Table 5.1) in terms of their power
nature, origin, production ways, and base.

Table 5.1 Village Power Organizations
Organizations Nature Origin Ways Sources
The Party
Branch
Political
Organization
1. the Ruling
party
2. The party
Constitution
Selected*
Appointed
Generally
recognized by
the masses

Village
Committee
Mass
Organization
1.villagers
2. the Organic
Law
Elected
competing
Confirmed by
voters
Villagers-
assembly or
villagers-
representative
assembly
Mass
Organization
1.villagers
2. the Organic
Law
Elected
competition
Confirmed by
voters
Economic
cooperative
Mass
Organization
1.members

2.law and rules
Elected
between
appointed and
competition
Confirmed by
members
* Although more and more places use some new ways such as “two balloting system” to
select village party branch secretaries, which seems a trend of taking a step in the direction of
election, they are essentially selected by township party Committee.


The party’s political position is paramount even at the village level, while the
village party branch secretary is a pivotal person in his or her community. By law, the
villagers-assembly is the supreme policy-making body in a village, voting on all major

189
village affairs. But because of the size and increasingly social mobility, it is difficult
to gather all adult members of the village to make decisions. The villagers-
representative assembly naturally becomes the more realistic decision-making body
for most villages. Theoretically, this body should make the most important decisions
concerning village life, and supervise the village committee’s implementation of those
decisions. A village committee is responsible for executing the villagers-
representative assemblies’ decisions, while its members are elected by villagers. These
three organizations are formal political ones.
Economic cooperative in many villages exists only in name. It was said that
the reason for its creation was to facilitate economic relations with outsiders.
Generally, the party secretary is the director of economic cooperative. In some regions,
particularly in coastal areas, some villages usually form economic organizations such
as industrial and commercial corporations, which mainly engage in economic

activities and control village collective property, and are usually controlled by main
village leaders.
Besides the above organizations, formal organizations in the village also
include the branch of the Communist Youth League, Women’s Committee, and the
Militia. The leaders and main members of those organizations are the village elites or
“village politicians” in the countryside.

5.1.2. The Mechanism of Community Elite Formation: Two Models
The village in reformist China is a stratified community, in which villagers
have differentiated into various strata. When looking at village elections, one may
look at power elite transformation. This notion departs from the idea that elites need to
respond to a rapidly changing context in transition.

190
Then, how do we explain the elite formation in rural China? It seems that the
conceptual framework of circulation or reproduction of elites employed by those
Eastern European scholars
2
can also be applied to rural China. Victor Nee offers a
circulation of elite hypothesis, arguing that China’s market reform is beneficial to new
economic actors, while former cadres lose out.
3
Whereas Andrew Walder takes a
position of reproduction of elites, claiming that the technocratic fraction of the old
elite benefits from transformation.
4
Wang Hansheng discusses the phenomenon of
reproduction of elites in rural China, noting the transformation from rural cadres to
economic elites. However, she also points out the possibility of independent formation
of elites.

5

The political and economic developments since the late 1970s have had a
strong impact on the formation of elites in transitional China. In rural China, market
transition mainly relates to the emergence of new economic elites, while democratic
transition, namely, village elections, mainly relates to the formation of village political
elites. According to my own surveys, the introduction of village election into rural
China since the middle of 1980s has indeed generated considerable circulation among
village political elites. However, the process of elite formation is not a process of
social revolution, but more probably a result of implementing policies.


2
See Theory and Society, Volume 24, Issue 5, Special Issue on Circulation vs. Reproduction of Elites
during the Postcommunist Transformation of Eastern Europe (Oct., 1995).

3
Victor Nee, “The Theory of Market Transition: From Redistribution to Markets in State Socialism,”
American Sociological Review 54, no.5 (1989): 663-681.

4
Andrew Walder, “Career Mobility and Communist Political Order,” American Sociological Review 60,
no.3 (June, 1995): 309-328.

5
Wang Hansheng, “Gai ge yi lai zhongguo nongcun de gongyehua yu nongcun jingying goucheng de
bianhua” (“Rural China’s Industrization and Transformation of Rural Elite Configuration since the
Reform”), Zhongguo shehui kexue jikan (China’s Social Science Quarterly) (Hong Kong: Autumn
1994): 18-24.

191
Individuals are recruited by some prespecified criteria. Many factors such as
channels, personality, and institution affect the elite recruitment. They can be devided
into three types: resource (economic, social, and personal), institutional, and village
background.

5.1.3. The Configuration of Village Elites
An elite structure is not only quite unusual in a statistical sense but also is
quite unusual in term of its configurations. Elite structure refers not only to the
statuses and roles that define elites, but also to (1) the pattern of actual and expected
behavior among them, and (2) the procedures and institutions through which they
interact to make political decisions.
6
Village elites are essentially political actors at
grassroots level, situated at the interface of the modern state and traditional society.
Their social composition and political character are critical to the situation of village
elections. There are currently three types of elites in a village community.
Political Elite Crudely speaking, political elites in villages mainly refer to
the cadres-power group in villages, however, theoretically those who are in the rank of
cadres but do not exert their influences on village should be eliminated from the list of
political elites in village. Thus, so-called political elites in village refer to the leaders
in village committees and the party branches. There are also some non-cadre political
elites in some villages are closely involved in village politics and exert much
influences on village affairs.
Economic Elite Village elites who have benefited economically from the
reforms have greater resources at their disposal to intervene in the political process.

Economic elites in the context of rural China mainly refer to managers, private

6
John Higley, G. Lowell Field, and Knut Grogolt, Elite Structure and Ideology (New York: Columbia

192
entrepreneurs and owners. However, in this chapter I will equate the term of economic
elite with the terms of rich man or capable man or can-doer (nengren), although there
are some differences in the definitions and extensions among these terms.
In recent years, a new phenomenon: from economic elite to political
administrator, namely the dramatic emergence of economic elites in village power
structure by village elections in rural China and particularly in coastal areas, has
captured the attention of the Western and Chinese scholars as well as Chinese
government and society. Rich men’s rise to power has changed the recruitment of the
village cadres and village politics operation. Many of them and one after another
participates in village public affairs and campaign for village elections, consisting of a
large proportion of village committee or party branch membership.
7
Economic elites’
rise to power is, politically, one of the most crucial changes in village community, and
an important dimension of rural politics.
Social Elite In a village community, those who have a high status and moral
quality, and a great influence on public affairs are usually social elites. They become
village elites on the basis of their moral character and personality, rather than on their
economic incomes or political positions in village formal power organizations.
Another approach is to divide village elites into two types: governing elite and
non-governing elite, the former mainly refers to the incumbent cadres, the latter the
rest of village elites.
It is necessary to point out that on the one hand more and more village elites,
particularly economic elites, actively participate in village politics. Almost all village
elites, political, economic, and social, have been drawn into village politics through

University Press, 1976), 88.


193
village elections and over time. On the other hand, the distinction among these elites
has become less and less clear. Therefore, compared with the common villagers, all
village elites are essentially political actors. Hence the term “village elites” is used to
mean political elites in the village in this study.

5.2 Roles, Contexts, and Strategic Acts
Due in great part to peasants’ passivity and weakness, village elites are the
representatives of their villages and fellows. They are the real practitioners and
operators of village democratic politics, but their roles are conditioned or constrained
by contextual factors, thus their need to employ some strategic acts to protect
democratic rights and promote village democracy.

5.2.1 “Apolitical Stratum” and Roles of Village Elites
Chinese common villagers are in a sense an apolitical stratum and this
underscores the important role of of village elites in village democratic politics.

“Apolitical Stratum”: the Social Foundation of Elites-dominated Village Elections
In modern societies, there is usually a large population who do not become
involved in politics. Robert A. Dahl once regards them as an “apolitical stratum”.
8
The
number of apolitical stratum in rural China is large too, but the reasons are somewhat
different.

7
See Lang Youxing and Lang Yougen, “Cong jingji jingying dao cunzhuren: cunji quanli gengti he

cunmin xuanju” (“From Economic Elite to Village Administrator: the Recruitment of Village Power-
holder and Village Elections in China”), Zhejiang Journal of Social Science, no.1 (2003): 114-119.

8
In Modern Political Analysis, Dahl presents six aspects to explain this phenomenon. See Robert A.
Dahl, Modern Political Analysis (fifth Edition) (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1991), 98-102.

194
First of all, the existence of apolitical stratum in rural China marks the return
to a normal life from a period of high politicization, which is a result of de-
politicalization. Second, there are no political associations except the CCP, and a few
non-political mass organizations and clans in rural China. Villagers belong to the non-
political stratum. Yet association is a precondition for the effective self-governing.
Furthermore, peasants’ activities are generally limited in the local political
situation. They are interested primarily in local issues and solutions, rarely in wider
political issues or in fundamental social change. Meanwhile classes seem to disappear,
and are no longer an important force in rural Chinese political life. A conclusion is
that elites rather than classes were destined to play a leading role in village elections
and other participations.
The passivity of peasants’ involvement in politics leaves political elites some
opportunities and a space to craft or manipulate village elections. Village elites indeed
have better skills of political participation than average villagers. They can increase
villagers’ awareness of their rights, role, and responsibility in village elections and
help them generally to play a more effective role by participating in the democratic
process.

Roles of Village Elites in Village Elections
Village elites are the representatives of their fellow villages, and main players
of village politics.
(1) Spokespersons of Villagers and Community Interests

There is much evidence to show that neither the People’s congress deputies at
all levels in rural areas, nor outsiders such as intellectuals and higher authorities, are

195
fully capable of representing peasants’ interests.
9
Even village cadres cannot
effectively represent and defend village interests under the current political system.
And, as above mentioned, peasants are poorly or weakly organized and their villages
have only weakly enabled upward representation by ordinary villagers. Yet, common
villagers need spokesperson(s) to protect their interests and defend their democratic
rights. When peasants gradually lose confidence in those institutional authorities, the
authorities outside the system (tizhi wai) quietly emerge and develop and in such as an
instance, the village elites have arisen to fill this vacuum, becoming their
spokespersons.
Furthermore, one psychological foundation of village elites’ important role in
democratic process lies in the belief by the masses that think elites can get more
resources for villages and have more channels to contact with higher authorities and
outside the villages. As David Zweig pointed out, the largest of the villagers selected
“people who keep close ties to the party”, because “villagers recognize that the CCP is
the most important organization in rural China and a major channel through which the
state distributes resources, so they benefit when their leaders have good party ties.”
10

Those who can become the spokesmen of peasants’ interests usually have the
following characteristics: (a) their ages are around 30 to 45; (b) their educational level
is over junior middle school; (c) their family income is at or above the middle income
level; (d) they have richer social experiences and more channels and ability to

9
For example, the data from one questionnaire conducted in 16 provinces including Beijing in 2000
demonstrate that among 1950 respondents, 1223 (62.7%) respondents think the current People’s
Congress gives a partial play to its role, and 217 (11.1%) respondents think the current People’s
Congress gives no play to its role. 1014 (52%) respondents think that the current People’s Congress
elections are conducted only as a matter of form. 633 (28.05%) respondents think that the current
People’s Congress deputies are only there as an honor or as a matter of form, while the proportion of
those who think that the current People’s Congress deputies can truly represent the masses’ opinions is
not high (only 36.77%). See Cai Dingjian, ed., Zhongguo xuanju zhuangkuang de baogao (The Report
on the State of Chinese Elections) (Beijing: Law Press, 2002), 518-520.


196
safeguard peasants’ legitimate interests and rights. As the representatives of their
fellow villagers, the elites are responsible for reporting villagers and village’s needs to
the higher authorities, supervising the management of the village party branch and
village committee, handling complaints and even conducting resistance.

(2) Practitioners and Operators: Mobilizing, Organizing, and Campaigning
Village elites are considered as the main practitioners, operators of village
democracy, since they have popularity, power, different kinds of political or non-
political resources to mobilize, organize, or campaign. They have more proper
channels and methods to explain their interests, and can skillfully handle democratic
procedures. Actually, a new stratum “with the governing elites as its main body and
recruiting non-governing elites has gradually consisted of the main group among
village public participation forces”.
11

What village elites do is to mobilize ordinary villagers, who are unfamiliar
with political participation, into village election, and release new energies and new

pressures. If we say that common villagers are apathetic toward political participation,
why have village elections in China drawn a very high voter turnout (an average of
more than 80 percent)? One answer is that the nature and rate of village political
participation are the result of mobilization by political elites. Dong Zhihui once called
village elections an elite-mobilized process, because voters themselves cannot
effectively form a consensus of their common interests and hold a stable efficacy
sense of voting. “At this moment, elites come on the stage.”
12
For example, in

10
David Zweig, “Democratic Values, Political Structures, and Alternative Politics in Greater China,”
United States Institute of Peace, Peaceworks 44 (2002): 24.

11
Wu Yi, “Cunzhi zhong de zhengzhiren: yi ge cunzhuang cunmin gonggong canyu he gonggong yishi
de fenxi” (“Political Men in a Village Governance: An Analysis of Villagers’ Public Participation and
Awareness in a Hunan Village”), Zhanlue yu guanli (Strategy and Management), no.1 (1998): 101.


197
Wangjiacun case, Kevin J. O’Brien and Li Liangjiang found that there was a group of
20 activists in Wangjiacun who mobilized villagers to “down with corruption, looking
for clear cadres”.
13
Dong Zhihui listed three kinds of elite-mobilized jobs: expressing
the common interest, working out the common interest consensus, and strengthening
efficacy sense of voting.
14
In fact, village elites are the real political men in a village

community, being the most important force that directly influences village politics and
governing.

(3) The Crafters of the New Political Participation Mechanisms
Some significant changes have occurred at the bottom of Chinese society, and
local elites are behind those initiatives. The elite is not only an organizer and
competitor, but a creative craftsman in village election too. During the past two
decades, village elites have introduced some important institutional innovations and at
least offered the original institutional framework. They have not only learned the
democratic procedures and the relevant knowledge from village elections, but have
also crafted many election rules. They have displayed extraordinary initiative in
crafting democratic mechanism. In village elections, for instance, village elites have
broken some “forbidden zones” such as campaigns and created a series of new
democratic discourses such as “haixuan” (sea election), “liang piaozhi” (two-balloting
system) and mechanisms to participate in politics, which have recieved the approval
from higher authorities.

12
Tong Zhihui, “Elites’ Mobilization in Peasants’ Participation in Village Elections,” 3.

13
Kevin J. O’Brien and Liangjiang Li, “The Politics of Lodging Complaints in Rural China,” China
Quarterly, no.143 (Sep., 1995): 756-783.

14
Tong Zhihui, “Elites’ Mobilization in Peasants’ Participation in Village Elections,” 3-4.

198
Among these innovations, the most significant and influential are probably the
“sea election” and “the villagers-representative assembly”. In section five, this study

focuses on the villagers-representative assembly. In brief, although we cannot
completely attribute these to the elites, village elites have definitely played a crucial
role in crafting village democratic participation mechanisms.

5.2.2 Contextual Factors of Village Elites’ Practicing of Village Democracy
We focus here on a set of contexts which condition or constrain village elites’
process of practicing village democracy. According to Ann Swidler, “context” can be
defined as the immediate situation or setting under which agencies or actors evolve.
15

Gary Goertz also argues that context can influence agencies or actors in two ways:
first, context may serve as some sort of “cause” that makes things happen; second,
context may be seen as a “barrier” in a situation where actors or agencies cannot
achieve their goals, whereas as a barrier, context prevents things from happening.
16
In
the case of village elections, factors such as the Organic Law and relevant institutions
can encourage village elites to participate in village political competition, but village
elites may not be able to promote village democracy due to the political constraints by
the party leadership. The contextual factors of village elites’ practicing of village
democracy mainly involve institutional and organizational dynamics, existing social
network, information and communication channels, and economic situation, which
serve as a “cause” or a “barrier” of village elites’ activities in village elections and
self-governance.


15
Ann Swidler, “Cultural Power and Social Movement,” in Social Movements and Culture, eds. H.
Johnston and B. Klandermans (London: University College London Press, 1995), 35.

16
Gary Goertz, Contexts of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 20-
21.

199



(1) Law, Rules and Regulations, and Institutional Arrangements
The implementation of village elections has made it possible for the village
elites and particularly capable people to increase their influence on common villagers
and seek village power. As a resource, the relevant law, rules and regulations, and
institutions can provide village elites with a better environment of fair competition and
friendly cooperation, while in the meantime, and create an incentive and a space for
village elites to craft village democracy through their practicing. Therefore, the
relevant laws and regulations have probably become the most important resource or
foundation to defend democratic rights and guarantee the fairness of village elections.
For example, among 100 complaint letters concerning village elections to the higher
authorities from Henan province, 88 of them involve the electoral activities against the
laws or regulations.
17
In the meantime, village elites have become the biggest
beneficiaries from this electoral system, through which they can quickly enter politics
and join the ruling stratum.

(2) Organizational and Personal Networks
Laws, institutions, and regulations provide village elites opportunities and a
basic framework to participate in village politics, but to make their participation more
effective in democratic elections, other resources are necessary. Village elites, or

17
The data are from Wang Xiaoxu, “Dui youguan cunweihui xuanji de yibai feng xin de fenxi” (“An
Analysis of 100 Complaint Letters Concerning Village Elections”), Rural China Observation, no.1
(2001): 70-72.

200
would-be elites, must hold certain resources, either materials or political, or social and
personal, in village democratic activities.
A network is a significant resource in rural China. Networking is a complex
phenomenon which has been recently discussed. As a resource of village’s elite’s
crafting village democracy, networks include not only formal or organizational one,
but also informal or personal one, which has been less focused on, but is important to
understand village elections and self-governance. For example, a position in village
formal organizations can give an incumbent cadre recourses, which are not only
advantageous to develop his relationship with township governments and have easier
access to the latter’s support, but also to mobilize his or her fellow villagers during
village elections. The incumbents have special rights and privileges that constitute
resources.
18

A formal organization is comparatively a more modern resource. There are
two main formal organizations that condition or constrain village elites’ process of
practicing village democracy: one is the village party branch committee, the other is
the village election committee. Kinship/clan and faction are two informal
organizations.

(A) Models of Village Party Branch and Village Committee
John Higley et al. argued that the consensus and unity among different elites is
a necessary precondition of the stability of democratic politics, but many countries

lack the consensus and unity, as a result, democratic regimes become pseudo-
democracies or unconsolidated democracies.
19
Similarly, the relationship between


18
Mary. F. Rogers, “Instrumental and Infra-Resources: The Bases of Power,” American Journal of
Sociology 79, no.6 (May, 1974): 1431.


201
village party branches and the elected village committees indeed influences working
of village democratic mechanism. After the implementation of village elections, a
village power structure becomes a bicameral one. In a village community, village
party branch and villagers’ committee are the most important formal organizations,
whereas others are auxiliary to these two organizations. Therefore, the models of party
branch and villagers’ committee constitute an organizational context of village
democracy.
Different models can differently condition or constrain village elites’ process
of practicing village democracy. According to their influence, Guo Zhenglin divided
the relationship between party branch and village committee into four types: Type A,
the strong party and strong villager’s committee, which is democratic-cooperated;
Type B, the weak party and the strong villager’s committee, which is villager’s
committee-dominated; Type C, the strong party and the weak villager’s committee,
which is the party-dominated; Type D, the weak party and the weak villager’s
committee, which is weak-slack.
20
He Baogang identified five models, which are
similar to Guo’s types: the domination of party secretaries, merged model (some

members of the village party branch are members of the villagers’ committee), the
domination of village committee and village assembly, power sharing, and a rift.
21

However, sometimes, the tension between the party and the village committee
“becomes the driving force for further elections and democratization”.
22



19
Elites and Democratic Consolidation in Latin America and Southern Europe, eds. John Higley and
Richard Gunther (Cambridge University Press, 1992), 23.

20
Guo Zhenglin, “Nongcun quanli jiegou de zhiduhua diaozheng” (“Institutional Adjustment of Village
Power Structure”), Open Times, no.7 (July, 2001): 37.

21
He Baogang, “Village Elections, Village Power Structure, and Rural Governance in Zhejiang,”
American Asian Review.20, no.3 (fall, 2002): 83-87.


202
(B) The Village Election Committee/Leading Group
The village election committee is the leading organ in village election. This
committee directly handles the election, playing an important role in the process of the
election. This leading body exercises its duties from the day it is formed until the new
villagers’ committee calls its first meeting. According to Zhejiang Province Measures
for the Election of Villagers’ Committee (Adopted on 22 October, 1999), the village

election committee shall perform the following duties: (a) propagate relevant laws and
regulations; (b) formulate an election work plan; (c) draft election ways and summit it
to villagers’ assembly or villager-representative’s assembly for approval; (d)
determine who are the election workers and train them; (e) organize voter registration,
investigate voter qualifications, publicize the voter list, issue voter registration cards;
(f) organize the nomination of candidates by villagers with the right to vote and
publicize the list of candidates; (g) confirm and publicize the voting date and the time;
(h) make preparations for the election, preside over the general election meeting,
organize the casting of ballots for the election; (i) summarize the election work and
summit it to the higher authority, establish election work files; (j) undertake other
matters relating to election work.
However, the village election committee’s practical roles and functions vary
from place to place. Some election committees can play a fair and active role in
village elections, others perform practically no function.

(C) Kinship-network
The relevant laws and regulations have provided an institutional framework for
village democratic politics, while grassroots resource and its using are yet

22
Ibid., 88.

203
fundamental to village elites’ operating village elections. Kinship/clans and factions
are two types of grassroots resources in rural China.
Chinese society is built around guanxi (relationships). Compared with urban
networks, rural networks tend to be more dense and kin-based.
23
Clan (zongzu) or
kinship (jiazu) was an essential unit of traditional Chinese society, but the Chinese

communist state completely changed the rural social structure when they came to
power in 1949. The lineage force was made insignificant despite its lingering
influence, only to re-emerge in the reform era under Deng Xiaoping.
Kinship/clans and factions are the informal organization. Lineage affiliation
does affect village elections, but its influence varies from place to place, and lineage
background is not a decisive factor to win an election. A voter tends to vote for
someone from one’s own lineage in one-surname dominant village, while in multi-
surname villages, voters tend to focus on the quality of candidate. If the economy is
poor, it is highly likely for villagers to vote for their own lineage and maintain their
domination and power. If the village party organization is strong, it is likely to contain
the influence of kinship.
24
While peasants sometimes vote for their lineage candidates;
it has been found that they also do vote out of concern for their personal interests
instead of kinship consideration.
However, in the literature concerned, informal organizations such as clans
seem to be hostile to democracy, while the clans or kinship-based network is often not
recognized by administration. The fact is that some of them can have positive effects
on democracy, namely, enhance the functioning of democracy. For example, clans in


23
J.S. House, D. Umberson, and K. R. Landis, “Structures and Processes of Social Support,” Annual
Review of Sociology, Volume 14 (1988): 312.

24
He Baogang, “How Kinship Influences Village Elections in China,” EAI Background Brief no. 146
(Date of Publication: 24 January 2003).

204

cooperation with formal village organizations “can assist village cadres in village
affairs, and play an active role in effectively governing the village”.
25



(D) Factions
The existence of factions in rural China is an objective reality. Within a village
community, there are usually several factions which are headed by elites. Factions,
which are informal and loose groups, formed on personal ties and interests, are a
common sight in village elections. In rural China, kinship ties and factions still serve
as a basis for a group’s identification. According to Granovetter, as a social network,
clans, families, or factions are strong ties.
26
Factions along with clans are an important
means and resource for village elites to mobilize voters in village elections. Among
village elites, those who have a strong factional network would usually prevail in
village elections.
Factionalism can play a positive role in political development of rural China
too. For example, the existence of factionalism can guarantee the competitive of
village elections and strictly abiding by electoral procedures, and maybe move
towards social or political pluralism. Some cases show that village factions can be
helpful to the efficiency of village elites and the masses’ public participation.
27

However, the existence of factions indicates the absence or at least lack of citizenship
in village communities.

25
Xu Yong, Village Self-governance in Rural China, 363.

26
Mark S. Granovetter, “The Strength of Weak Ties,” American Journal of Sociology 78 (1973): 1376.

27
Sun Qionghui and Lu Fuying, “Zhongguo nongcun jiceng zhengzhi shenghuo zhong de paixi
jingzheng” (“Faction Competition in Rural China’s Grassroots Politics”), Rural China Observation,

205
(3) Elites, Information, and Village Elections
Election information refers to the date, hour, and place of voting, the type of
election, registration requirement, mechanism for voting, and nomination, and other
things about the election. Sniderman illustrates that well-informed citizens vote and
act differently than those with less information, believing that they can exert more
discipline on their representatives.
28
Some countries’ experiences have demonstrated
the significant influences of information on politics, for example, in Indian villages
“educated and well-informed villagers participate comparatively more in democracy
at grassroots level”.
29
Similarly, information is not only important for village elections,
but also for village governance such as policy-making, management, and supervision
in rural China. The issue of the information about village elections essentially
concerns the transparency of the elections.
Particularly in a climate characterized by a tight control of information, the
question is not that villagers are not interested in the information concerned, but the
difficulty of gaining access to it; hence gaining other accesses to reliable information

becomes even more significant. Many common villagers do not know the laws, rules
and regulations, policies concerned clearly, while, comparatively speaking, village
elites know them and the actual situation of village elections more clearly. For
example, my questionnaire conducted in Zhejiang in October-November 1998 shows
that among 1245 respondents (villagers), 499 (40.1%) respondents do not know the
Organic Law of Villagers’ Committees, and 370 respondents (29.7%) just know a
little about it (see Table 5.2).

no.3 (2000): 70-71.

28
Paul M. Sniderman, “Information and Electoral Choice,” in Information and Democratic Processes,
eds. John A. Ferejohn and James H. Kuklinski (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990), 117-135.

29
Anirudh Krishna, “Enhancing Political Participation in Democracies: What is the Role of Social
Capital?” Comparative Political Studies 35 no.4 (May, 2002): 455.

206

Table 5.2 Do You Know the Organic Law of Villagers’ Committees?
Sex
Male Female
Total
Answers
Numbers % Numbers % Numbers %
Know well 56 6.7 11 2.7 67 5.4
Know 201 24.1 76 18.5 277 22.2
Know a
little

253 30.3 117 28.5 370 29.7
Don’t
know
300 36.0 199 48.4 499 40.1
No answer 24 2.9 8 1.9 32 2.6
Total 834 100 411 100 1245 100.00
Source: a questionnaire conducted by the author in Zhejiang province in October-November
1998.


Village elites are most likely to have knowledge about politics and know about
the village internal political structure. These elites are much more aware of the
political phenomenon; discuss them more frequently, and more willing to voice their
opinion on issues than the average villagers. And they know more about the laws and
regulations, policies concerning village self-governance. The more village elites know
about election procedures and the news of successful elections conducted in other
areas, the more and better the common villagers know about the laws and policies
because of the elites propagating (elite-led village elections), and the more difficult it
would be to manipulate the elections while easier to craft village democracy, and the
reverse is also true (see Table 5. 3).

Table 5.3 Elites and Information on Village Elections
Crafting Manipulating
Well informed
Elite-led elections Easy Difficult

Ill-informed
No elite-led elections Difficult Easy

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The government ought to be an important source of information to its citizens.
However, under the current situation in China, many local governments and
particularly township governments cannot actively offer the necessary information to
villagers. They feel that “the more knowledgeable villagers are, the harder to control,”
and they sometimes detain or round up villagers simply for spreading publicized
central government policies.
30
A Hebei village election is a case in point that
demonstrates the importance of the relevant information and the fact of local
government’s control of information.
31


5.2.3. Strategic Acts: Innovating and Resisting
Village elites need to use their political skills, tactics, and means to craft
village democracy under certain contexts. In fact, the focus on the practices, strategies,
or tactics, can call our attention to the dynamic process of crafting village democracy.
Those practices or strategies can gradually produce new political and cultural
structures over time, whereas these structures in turn shape social environment for
further democratization in their locality. Village elites mainly use the following
strategies: complaints to higher-level authorities, petitions, posters, lawsuits, and
leading even demonstration to struggle for the fairness of the elections and against the
township government or village party branch’s manipulation.


30
Kevin J. O’Brien, “Rightful Resistance,” World Politics 49, no.1 (October, 1996): 42.

31
When one group of peasants in a Hebei village made a complain against several village leaders in
their township government office, one petitioner saw a copy of the Organic Law of Villagers’
Committee by chance. He realized the signification of the law after having read it. “The activists
collectively studied the law for a while and resolved to ‘lodge complaints against the township
government for violating the Organic Law by not holding democratic elections’”. As a result, due to the
pressure, the township government had to convene village elections. See Lianjiang Li and Kevin J.
O’Brien, “Villagers and Popular Resistance in Contemporary China,” Modern China 22, no.1 (Jan.,
1996): 44-45.

208

(1) Regarding Law and Institutions as a Weapon
Village elites have gradually learned how to employ official laws, regulations,
and policies concerned to protect their own and fellow villagers’ democratic rights.
They lead villagers to study the legal text to complain against all kinds of illegal or
unfair elections, and even drive those corrupt or incompetent village cadres out of
office. Some elites not only know these rules very well, but also are good at using
them. For example, they very carefully check every step and sector of village elections
against the Organic Law and local rules and regulations. Consequently, some
township leaders signed with emotion, “do not miss any procedure, otherwise, we will
probably have some troubles”.
32

Kevin O’Brien and Li Lianjiang once pointed out that resourceful villagers,
namely elites (in my term), could cite the Organic Law and provincial regulations to
demand fair elections, or boycott rigged votes, or lodge complaints to higher
authorities.
33
In Defend National Electoral Law, Protect Citizen’ legal Rights, a letter

of protest written by a Yangxingcun villager of Taiping Town of Qingxin County,
Guangdong province contain the following meaningful words: “Currently all walks of
life are learning and carrying out Chairman Jiang’s ‘three representatives theory’, but
the town government dared to disregard national electoral law, deceive villagers,
listed Xu, a unelected villager, as the names of candidates, why? Then, in this way,
what position is the national law, rules and regulations?”
34
This letter well


32
In my surveys conducted in July and August 2002 in Zhejiang, many local officials told me that many
village activists knew the Organic Law very well, with some having better legal knowledge than local
cadres.

33
Kevin J. O’Brien and Li Lianjiang, “Accommodating ‘Democracy’ in a One-Party State: Introducing
Village Elections in China,” The China Quarterly 162 (June, 2000): 481-482.

34
Li Jiangtao, Guo Zhenlin, Wang Jinhong, Li Dahua, and Tong Xiaopin, Minzhu di genji:

209
demonstrates that village activists know the relevant laws and their own democratic
rights, and more important is that they can skillfully use the laws as a weapon to
defend their interests. Some grassroots leaders always regard village activists as
“troublemakers”, a group of peasants without legal knowledge and who do not abide
by the law. In fact this charge is not true. Those village activists express their loyalty
to the state and committee to implement the Organic Law of Villagers’ Committees
when they lodged complaints against the corrupt village cadres or illegal electing.

The relevant laws and policies have become a weapon, an arsenal of “rightful
resistance”
35
, to protect villagers’ interests and democratic rights.

(2) Appealing to the Masses’ Emotion and Playing up Public Issues
An important dimension of village elections is the interaction between the
masses and elites. The stable syndromes of elite-mass linkages can actually deepen
our understanding of the dynamics of political elites’ crafting in different areas. In the
process of village elections, village elites usually appeal to the masses’ emotion, help
in forming their common interests, and become the spokesmen of these interests. If
they do not conform to general accepted norms of behavior, sometimes, elite can
quickly lose the support of the villagers. Therefore, to those elites wealth should not
be accumulated for themselves instead firstly for the common well-being of the
community.
Some electoral systems encourage personality oriented rather than public issue
oriented campaigns, while others are quite the contrary. Under Chinese current
political system, candidates of villagers’ committee usually have to engage in public

Guangdongsheng jiceng minzhu jianshe di shijian (The Basis of Democracy: the Practices of
Grassroots Democratic Construction in Rural Guangdong Province) (Guangzhou: Guangdong renmin
chubanshe, 2002) (Guangzhou: Guangdong People’s Press, 2002), 239.


210
issue oriented campaigns. “I intend to do some things good for the village”, and “My
own political ambition is on the whole village and not my own family” are common
refrains during campaign periods. Playing up public issues while never saying for
his/her own or a group interest is a characteristic of village elites’ strategic acts. In
elite-dominated governing, what is most important is how village elites effectively

meet villager’s demands with regard to public goods and services. After all, public
interests and the masses’ feelings are important weapons to win the elections.
Besides appealing to their fellow villagers, village elites appeal to external
forces.

(3) Borrowing External Forces
David Knoke argues that “A community’s success depended on the capacity of
local organizations to forge links with national political centres.”
36
As a political
entity, villages are under the control of the authorities at all levels and affected by both
external and internal factors, conversely, they influence the outside. Obviously, village
actors are not alone, while village power does not stop at its border. Villages are not
left alone to carry on their own internal affairs. Villages stand in close interaction with
their township and beyond.
Since endogenous forces alone are not enough, the role of outside forces is of
importance in crafting village democracy. Sometimes, village elites actively invite
“state force” into the process of village elections, which is a necessary commitment.
37

Like other countries’ experiences where “local and nationally-situated actors use

35
See Kevin J. O’Brien, “Rightful Resistance,” 31-55.

36
David Knoke, Political Networks: the Structural Perspective (Cambridge, New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1990), 125.

37

Tong Zhihui, “Elites’ Mobilization in Peasants’ Participation in Village Elections,” 4.

211