Local Cadre Accommodation to the "Responsibility System" in Rural China

Abstract

SINCE DECEMBER 1978, China's leaders have embarked on an ambitious economic development program, which, in rural areas, has seen decollectivization of China's economy and the implementation of a system of farming in which peasants sign contracts with local authorities to produce a certain product at an agreed-upon price (household contract farming).' The new economic policies have had an impact on local rural political organizations, changing both the functions and authority of local officials. Village and sub-village leaders have perceived these changes either as an improvement-in which case they have adapted to them-or as evidence of organizational decline. In the latter case the leaders have accommodated themselves, either by resigning their posts and withdrawing, or by protesting and opposing the new policies and the accompanying organizational decline. In response to these actions, China's higher-level rural leadership has taken remedial action to meet local organizational problems created by the new economic policies. This paper examines cadre accommodation to the new policies, and draws on the work of Albert Hirschman2 to examine local cadre responses to organizational decline. Hirschman argues that in a competitive environment, when firms and organizations decline, rational consumers or organization members will either switch to the products of other firms, thus leaving the organization (exit), or express their dissatisfaction to the management of the firm or leaders of the organization with a view to changing the state of affairs (voice), or use some combination of the two strategies. These