anjiang Li

Political Trust in Rural China

This article shows that while some Chinese villagers see the state as monolithic, more believe that there are substantial differences between the central and local governments. Among those who perceive a divided state, most appear to have more trust in higher levels than in lower levels and distinguish between the intent and the capacity of the central government (“the Center”). They trust that the Center’s intent is beneficent but distrust its capacity to ensure faithful implementation of its policies. The article concludes that the central state has some breathing space because dissatisfaction with lower levels does not immediately generate demands for fundamental political reforms; in addition, the combination of trust in the Center’s intent and distrust in its capacity may encourage villagers to defy local officials in the name of the Center. If villagers’ rightful resistance fails, total disillusionment with the Center may set in, resulting in cynicism or radicalism.

Accommodating 'Democracy' in a One-Party State: Introducing Village Elections in China

When residents of a few Guangxi villages decided to elect their own leaders in late 1980 and early 1981, none of them could have known they were starting a historic reform. What began as a stopgap effort to fill a political vacuum, after much debate and two decades of uneven implementation, is now enshrined in a national law. Procedures for holding elections have been spelled out and implementing regulations are being formulated at all levels. Voting is now mandatory every three years in every village, bar none.

Suing the Local State: Administrative Litigation in Rural China

This article examines the dynamics of administrative litigation in rural China. It shows how local officials often attempt to preempt, derail or undermine administrative lawsuits by blocking access to official documents and regulations, pressuring courts to reject cases, failing to appear in court or perjuring themselves, discrediting attorneys, and intimidating litigants. It also discusses, however, how villagers fight back by drawing in sympathetic elites (such as peoples congress deputies and the media) and mobilizing collective appeals and staging public protests. The paper concludes that administrative litigation provides a useful window on Chinese state-society relations and on the interplay of legal and political mobilization. It also suggests that should more villagers incorporate administrative litigation into their repertoire of contention, a reform designed to extend the life of an authoritarian regime may play a part in nudging China a step closer to rule of law.

Protest Leadership in Rural China

Rural protest leaders in China play a number of roles. Among others, they lead the charge, shape collective claims, recruit activists and mobilize the public, devise and orchestrate acts of contention, and organize cross-community efforts. Protest leaders emerge in two main ways. Long-time public figures initiate popular action on their own or in response to requests from other villagers; ordinary villagers evolve into protest leaders when efforts to seek redress for a personal grievance fail. Rural officials sometimes attempt to co-opt or buy off protest leaders, but more often turn to repression. Although cracking down may inhibit further contention, at other times it firms up the determination of protest leaders and makes them more prone to adopt confrontational tactics, partly by enhancing their popular support, partly by increasing the costs of withdrawal.

Political Trust and Petitioning in the Chinese Countryside

The paper examines the significance of distinguishing trust in governments commitment from trust in its competence for understanding the relationship between political trust and political participation. It finds that Chinese farmers have more trust in the central governments commitment to protect their rights and interests than in its capacity to do so. Trust in the Centers competence carries more weight than trust in its commitment in accounting for the propensity to petition. Petitioning tends to weaken trust the Centers capacity as well as trust in its commitment. Distrust of the Centers commitment enhances propensity to engage in more assertive forms of political participation.

The Magnitude and Resilience of Trust in the Center

This article proposes two explanations for why public confidence in China’s central authorities has appeared high and stable since the early 1990s. Drawing on interviews with petitioners in Beijing, it argues that trust in the Center is resilient in the sense that individuals who might be expected to lose trust often manage to retain it by redefining what constitutes the Center and what is trustworthy about it. On one hand, they remain confident by excluding authorities they find untrustworthy from the Center. On the other hand, they remain confident in the Center’s commitment even when they no longer trust its capabilities. Drawing on a local survey conducted in 2011, this article suggests that global and generic measures used in national surveys may overstate the amount of public confidence in central authorities by missing two subtle variations. First, people may sound confident about central leaders in general while they only trust one or some leaders. Second, people may sound fully confident about central leaders while they only have partial trust.

Popular Contention and its Impact in Rural China

Protest outcomes in rural China are typically an outgrowth of interaction between activists, sympathetic elites, targets, and the public. Popular agitation first alerts concerned officials to poor policy implementation and may prompt them to take corrective steps. As a result of participating in contention, certain activists feel empowered and become more likely to take part in future challenges, whereas others feel disillusioned and lapse into passivity. In the course of observing collective action, some onlookers are sensitized to protesters’ concerns and public opinion is affected. Without popular action, better implementation, biographical change, and effects on the public would not emerge, but nor would they without involvement from above. Studying the impact of this protest thus sheds light on two issues that have long troubled students of contentious politics: (a) how to get a grip on indirect, mediated consequences; and (b) how to think about causality when change is a result of popular action as well as openings provided by sympathetic elites.

Petitioning Beijing: The High Tide of 2003-2006

What precipitated the 2003-2006 “high tide” of petitioning Beijing and why did the tide wane? Interviews and archival sources suggest that a marked increase in petitioners coming to the Capital was at least in part a response to encouraging signals that emerged when Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao adopted a more populist leadership style. Because the presence of tens of thousands of petitioners helped expose policy failures of the previous leadership team, the Hu-Wen leadership appeared reasonably accommodating when petitioners arrived en masse in Beijing. Soon, however, the authorities shifted toward control and suppression, partly because frustrated petitioners employed disruptive tactics to draw attention from the Center. In response to pressure from higher-ups, local authorities, especially county leaders, turned to coercion to contain assertive petitioners and used bribery to coax officials in the State Bureau of Letters and Visits to delete petition registrations. The high tide receded in late 2006 and was largely over by 2008. This paper suggests that a high tide is more likely after a central leadership change, especially if a populist program strikes a chord with the population and elite turnover augments confidence in the Center and heightens expectations that it will be responsive to popular demands.

The two-ballot system in Shanxi province: subjecting village party secretaries to a popular vote

Just as county-level, township and village leaders in Hequ county, Shanxi province, were holding their annual meeting on a wintry day in January 1991, a big-character poster co-signed by dozens of peasants from Daiyudian village appeared outside the entrance of the county government compound. It listed 23 wrongdoings committed by their village Party secretary, including embezzlement, unfair enforcement of the birth-control policy, and inequitable distribution of public lands. The complainants demanded a thorough official investigation and dismissal of the Party secretary. The next day, more than forty of the villagers travelled to the Chengguan town government to formally lodge the same complaint. Alarmed town leaders quickly dispatched a work team of officials to Daiyudian village. The work team soon discovered that all 23 charges against the Party secretary were well-founded. Yet the work team was not sure what to do. It

Campaign Nostalgia in the Chinese Countryside

Based on in-depth interviews, survey data, and archival sources, this paper analyzes the origins of nostalgia for Maoist mass campaigns directed against corruption and other malfeasance engaged in by local officials. It argues that campaign nostalgia is an indicator of frustration and unmet expectations. Its origins trace to an unwillingness on the part of the Party leadership to rely on mass mobilization to check cadre corruption. Although nostalgic villagers undoubtedly underestimate the downside of mass movements while conjuring up an idyllic era of official probity, it is understandable that these individuals long for a romanticized version of the rectifications of old and dismiss ineffective clean government drives, legal remedies and bureaucratic supervision as feeble replacements for centrally sponsored, direct struggle against wrongdoers. Still, campaign nostalgia may wane as institutional anti-corruption measures take hold and popular confidence in rule by law builds up. Continuing economic growth and village elections, at least in some locations, may also help reduce the popular yearning for mass mobilization.