Political Experience: A Missing Variable in the Study of Political Transformation

Abstract

Village elections in China have engendered a major debate among students of Chinese politics. At the center of the debate is the nature of elections in rural China and their impact on people's voting behavior. While some argue that the introduction of semi competitive elections in rural China has altered people's voting behavior, other scholars deny any meaningful change in people's voting behavior, finding that the nature of elec tions in rural China remains unchanged. The sharp contrast between these two schools of thought has pushed students of Chinese politics to reach diverse conclusions about the implications of rural elections for political development in China.1 A careful review of studies on village elections suggests that both observations on people's voting behavior might be correct, but they might have captured people's voting behavior at different stages of this important political development. Both sides assume that if elections are real, people will grasp the opportunity immediately to pur sue their interests. In real life, however, people may not necessarily act this way. Voters usually need some time to understand the meaning and implication of such reforms. In a closed political environment, reliable information is rarely available from the media. Voters must rely on themselves to acquire such critical information. Thus, the rationale for people to vote before they have had any direct or indirect personal experience of elections may differ from that after they have personally experienced them. Up to now, little attention has been paid to the impact of political experience on people's vot ing behavior. The contrasting findings on villagers' turnout in village committee elections can be synthesized in a two-stage political learning theory of people's voting behavior. When elections were available for the first time, inexperienced voters sought information on the intention of the regime in introducing elections and the benefits they might pursue through such elections. Their decision to vote was shaped primarily by their capacity to figure out the regime's intentions and assess whether they could pursue any goals through elections. Once voters learned from their own experience, accumulated through either active participation or passive observation, that they could pursue certain goals through these elections, their learning process entered into a second stage. At this stage, decisions to vote depended on whether voters knew how to pursue their goals effec tively through elections. If learning at the first stage concentrates on whether elections 103