Village Elections and Village Power Structure

Abstract

A growing body of literature has studied the impact of village elections on village power structure and village governance. Melanie Manion (1996:745) concludes that “congruence between village leaders and villagers is in significant part the result of an electoral connection that involves voter choice.” Robert A. Pastor and Qingshan Tan (2000:511) suggest “there is evidence that free elections can produce not only better leaders and policy, but also social stability.” And according to Jean C. Oi and Scott Rozelle (2000:513–39), elections open up a new source of political power and serve to question the locus of village power. Lianjiang Li’s (1999:103–18) study of the two-ballot system highlights the fact that the party secretary’s lack of legitimacy has led to an experiment whereby village party secretaries are elected by a popular vote. Baogang He (2002) has examined the impact of village elections on the behavior of village leaders and village power structure (also see Baogang He and Lang Youxing 2000b and 2002). Jonathan Unger (2002:222) also asserts, “the example set by the village elections is contagious.” He argues, “the structure of rural governance, which had largely stood unchanged since the end of Mao’s era, is perhaps beginning to bend in important ways.” In contrast, Jude Howell (1998:101) questions whether village elections have actually affected village power structures. She observes that, while party secretaries continue to wield considerable power in some villages, in one instance the party secretary had to rely on the village assembly to assert his authority. She also suggests, “further research is required to establish how powerful these committees are in relation to the Party and township government.”KeywordsVillage LeaderParty SecretaryVillage HeadVillage CommitteeVillage ElectionThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.