Power beyond Instituted Power: Forms of Mediation Spaces in the Chinese Countryside

Abstract

Since the political and economic reforms carried out in the countryside, the nature of the relations established between grassroots levels of government and local inhabitants has been a core issue in many debates. The main concept usually mobilized to analyze such relationships is that of power, most studies trying to assess if the power detained by local cadres has declined or increased during the recent decades, or if its nature has changed.1 Such a concept seems to be implicitly used in its Weberian acceptation. In other words, what is discussed is political power considered as the domination exercised by some men upon others and based on the use of legitimate violence, the concept of economic power being sometimes mentioned and coupled with that of political power. As a consequence, the analysis usually relies on an opposition or at least a dichotomy between local officials and the rest of the population. Moreover, the formal organs of power at the village level, namely the Party Branch and the Village Committee, appear to be the main relevant units of analysis, a focus also supported by the rising interest in village elections.2