Organizer: Melanie Manion, University of Rochester
Chair: Martin Whyte, George Washington University
Discussants: Michel Oksenberg, Stanford University; M. Kent Jennings, University of California, Santa Barbara
The past two decades define a period of major institutional reform in China. Essential organizational features of the Leninist system have been retained, but the widely publicized official promotion of market, legal, and electoral mechanisms as important guarantors of economic prosperity and political stability is new. The developing institutions of the "socialist market economy," "socialist legality," and "socialist democracy" clearly represent significant change in policy orientation at the top. This panel considers the implications of these institutional reforms for serious political change by focusing attention far below the level of policy makers. Each of the three papers systematically analyzes data from new, separately conducted surveys to gauge prospects for change by investigating actions and beliefs of ordinary Chinese. Surveys of private entrepreneurs and local officials in Hebei, Shandong, Zhejiang, and Hunan consider the implications of market reform; surveys of villagers in Shaanxi consider the implications of legal reform and legal education; surveys of villagers and village leaders in Hebei, Anhui, Hunan, and suburban Tianjian investigate the implications of village electoral reform.
Private Entrepreneurs and Political Change in China
Bruce Dickson, George Washington University
The emergence of a newly legitimated private sector in the Chinese economy presents new prospects for political change. Many scholars and most American policymakers assume that the norms of the private market are a democratizing force and that private entrepreneurs are democratizing agents in China. Yet, without systematic knowledge about the political beliefs and actions of Chinese entrepreneurs, it is difficult to assess such claims. This paper considers prospects for democratization associated with the growth of the private economy by analyzing survey data from eight counties in four provinces (two each in Hebei, Shandong, Zhejiang, and Hunan). The surveys: (1) examine the involvement of private entrepreneurs in business associations, local politics, and policy implementation; and (2) compare political values and aspirations of private entrepreneurs with those of local party and government officials with whom they most frequently interact. Mainly, the analysis demonstrates how differences in local context (such as local history, economic development, and privatization) and personal attributes (such as age, education, and membership in organizations including the communist party) shape the political beliefs and actions of entrepreneurs. Secondarily, the analysis investigates the adaptation of the communist party to political consequences of the growth of private markets—for example, the ability to exercise party leadership over business associations and to coopt entrepreneurs into the party. On the basis of these analyses, the paper assesses how and how much private entrepreneurs are likely to be an important force for political change in China.
Seeking Justice through Formal Channels in Rural China
Leslyn Hall, University of Michigan
A new official acknowledgment of the importance of law to resolve routine conflicts and an official effort to popularize legal knowledge provides ordinary Chinese with a potentially powerful resource. Media reports and academic studies indicate that ordinary citizens are taking advantage of the new environment to seek their due through formal channels. Despite popular, official, and scholarly interest in this issue, basic questions remain unanswered. This paper analyzes mass survey data from two counties in Shaanxi province to address systematically descriptive and explanatory issues regarding the use of legal and administrative channels in rural China. First, the paper describes the prevalence of these practices and the sorts of problems villagers attempt to resolve through courts and by contacting officials. Secondly, the paper examines an explanatory issue: what accounts for choices to turn to these mechanisms to resolve problems? The analysis explores two categories of explanations: (1) are individuals who have resorted to legal or administrative channels to resolve problems different from the local adult population in individual characteristics? This includes demographic characteristics (such as education and income) and attitudinal characteristics (mainly, attitudes toward the law and conceptions of justice). (2) are problems brought to legal and administrative channels similar to problems that villagers attempt to resolve by other means (or not attempt to resolve)? Finally, the paper considers the implications of findings for our understanding the emergence of legal norms in China, in particular, whether the use of formal channels is a search for justice through laws or simply a search for justice.
Grassroots Democratization and Political Efficacy in China
Melanie Manion, University of Rochester
A decade after passage of a law on village committees, introducing institutions that usually promote representation and strengthen accountability, progress is evident: most villages have held at least three elections, although electoral choice, transparency, and popular participation vary considerably, and the authority of village committees remains constrained by the local party organization. This paper analyzes data from 1990 and 1996 surveys of Chinese villages and officials in sixty villages (in four counties, one each in Anhui, Hebei, Hunan, and suburban Tianjin) to examine effects of progress in grassroots democratization on local political efficacy and consider implications of efficaciousness in rural China. In liberal democracies, political efficacy—beliefs about effectiveness of individual (or collective) action in producing political change or obtaining results from political authorities—is mainly a function of education and socioeconomic status. This individual-level model of political efficacy assumes availability of an established democratic ideology and supportive institutions. In China, the ideology of grassroots democratization is ambivalent, the emergence of supportive institutions measurably uneven. The latter local variation permits investigation of institutional (not only individual) explanations of political efficacy. A wide distribution of efficaciousness is part of the culture of liberal democracy; in liberal democracies, it also has positive consequences for regime support and political stability. In view of this, the relationship between grassroots institutional change and political efficacy offers insight into prospects for cultural change in China. Whether grassroots political efficacy is associated with broader support in a system where relevant institutions do not extend upward is an empirical question, offering insight into prospects for political change in China.