Local Elites and Popular Support for Economic Reform in China and India

Abstract

This article analyzes why it is that China, an authoritarian political system, has managed to generate more popular support for the reform process than India, a democracy. The authors argue that when local politicians and bureaucrats are more supportive of the reform process, there is likely to be greater popular support for economic reform. Local political elite may be more supportive of reform in an authoritarian than in a democratic system because the level of local elite support for the reform process is influenced by the incentives faced by local elite. In China, institutional reform changed the incentives faced by local elite, whereas in India, reforms have not been accompanied by institutional changes that would encourage local elite to support reform to the same extent as in China. The argument is based on local elite and mass surveys conducted in China and India in 1990 and 1996, respectively. A logit model, controlling for a variety of alternative explanations, provides evidence that local elite support is critical for explaining whether reforms are popular.