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Social Cleavage, Institution, and Democratization: The Case of Village Election in Rural China

Sookyung KooGeorgetown University, Washington D.C. USA

Introduction

This paper will explore main contributors of institutional reform on the development of Chinese

grassroots politics by discussing the origin and the early institutionalization of Village Committee (VC)

election in rural areas. In the late 1980 and early 1981, VCs appeared genuinely to readdress social order

and build community leadership for public security and welfare and VC members were elected by

villagers informally. Then, within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the institutionalization of VC

election was debated. Despite controversies over the way to organize VC members (local cadres) not

through the appointment by the Party but elections, ‘the Organic Law’ constitutionalizing VC election

was finally passed by the National People’s Congress (NPC) in 1988. Since the first official VC

elections, rewards and risks for the government officials involved in the implementation of VC election,

has been institutionalized as well and rural residents, who are most affected by the election, have

contributed to the standardization of VC electoral procedures. The question of this paper is what were

the main variables to lead the appearance of VC elections and institutionalization of them, abolishing the

existing political institution? The answer to this question relates to not only socio-economic and

political changes in China but also the rise of rural people as social cleavage. This paper explains the

socio-economic origin of VC election and emphasizes the Party-social cleavage relations over VC

election—the interaction between the requirements of rural social cleavage over VC election and the

responsiveness of the CCP. Explaining that VC election has been mainly originated and institutionalized

by rural people as social cleavage, this paper will argue that 1) even the authoritarian regime needs

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political legitimacy, 2) the Party-social cleavage relations can be developed under the one-party

dictatorship, and 3) Chinese democratization would be possible.

Socio-Economic Origin of Village Committee

Before economic reform in the late 1970s, rural China had the commune system. The commune

administration and brigades took care of rural governance in townships and villages each.1 And

township authorities appointed village cadres (local cadres). And ‘production teams’ were created and a

group of people worked together for their common land. However, since this system had low

productivity, ‘family farming’ system was introduced—peasants were given responsibility for farming

their own land. The family farming system brought greater productivity:

Collective agriculture was dismantled and replaced by a system of household contract farming which allowed peasants to benefit directly from their labors. Rural free markets for goods, credits and labor were reopened. Household land contracts were eventually made hereditary to stimulate investment in the long-term productivity of land…During 1978-90 the annual growth rate of agricultural output was 6%. Most striking is the expansion of the rural industry. The average annual growth of Chinese rural industrial output over 1978-87 was 26%.

– Xu Wang

However, it collapsed the overall commune system in rural China at the same time. The impact

of economic reform entailed political changes. Township governments replaced the commune

administration and autonomous village system replaced brigades. It means there was no administrative

body and authority to govern millions of village under each township. What left for former village

cadres was vaguely defined authority and limited resources. Furthermore, since there was no more

common interest for peasants and cadres and peasants did not cooperate with cadres according to the

abolishment of collective system. Cadres lost the motivation to govern villages and became corrupted

(Wang, 1997). National policy such as birth control, conscription, and tax collections could not be

1 ‘Village’ is a basic administrative unit in China and the next is township, county (district), prefecture (autonomous regions are also prefecture level), and province.

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implemented and local governance for public works was dysfunctional (Tan, 2004). Therefore, the new

social and political structure in rural China was required and that was VC.

Movements from the Bottom and The Rise of Rural Social Cleavage

For the first time, rural villagers/peasants looked for the new social and political structures by

themselves without the guidance of local authorities at township government. Rural people do not have a

high level of mobilization. In many cases, they spend their whole life where they are born. Villagers

know each other well like one family; therefore, cooperation is easier than urban areas, even though

everybody has a burden of serving as village leaders.The emergence of VCs in the late was led by

village elders, community-minded villagers, and some of former cadres and VC members were elected

informally. Then, VCs were widely spreading to other areas and becoming popular among peasants

(O’Brien and Li, 2000).

The main reason rural people created and supported VC system was not only to build up the new

system in rural areas but also to stop the corruption and arbitrary behaviors of local cadres. As

mentioned above, as the collective system in rural China collapsed, cadre-peasants relationship was

deteriorated. The fact that cadres had no political incentives to work for peasants and their authority was

vaguely defined means corruption and misgovernance were increasing:

A CCP survey shows that in 1988 only 38% of peasants evaluated their local leaders positively (People’s Daily, April 12, 1988). Another survey of 100 villages in Southern China in 1991 found that the relationship between CCP cadres and peasants was ‘tense’ in 55 of them (Wang, 1991, p. 18).

– Xu Wang

The existing local cadres appointed by the central government’s local authorities use coercion or threats

rather than persuasion to implement policies such as birth control or tax collection (O’Brien and Li,

2000). There was an urgent call from rural China to terminate the deterioration of rural governance

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caused by the abuse of power of local cadres (Tan, 2004). Rural people realized they need leaders they

can select and supervise rather than appointed officials, who were relatively free from the supervision of

the central government while working in remote areas. It does not necessarily mean that rural people

was trying to improve democracy. However, as the political voice of rural people was increasing, they

were becoming a group of social cleavage affecting political distribution. They knew what they want to

demand to the central government and they built the first phase of institutionalization of VCs.

Historical Origin of Rural Social Cleavage

The Beijing government received the report on the natural emergence of VCs and conducted the

institutionalization of VC election. Since the Chinese government was also looking for the way of

political reform in rural China and problems of village affairs were mainly caused by the corruption of

the government-appointed local cadres, the government carefully went over the idea of VCs as a good

example of local governance and accepted it. It also means the CCP recognized rural people as the

important social cleavage for the Party’s power and identity and took care of their interests. Usually, in

nation states with a one-party system, government organizations or ministries are under the dominant

party and the government as the administrative branch reflects the stance of the party. In China, the

government-appointed local cadres are those who are appointed by the CCP and the government-

villagers or mass-cadre relations in rural China are basically the Party-social cleavage relations (Tan,

2004).

Even before the CCP accepted the requirements of rural people regarding VC election, rural

people were particularly important for the CCP, because the Chinese society and the CCP were founded

on rural power. China has achieved an unprecedented economic development and entered in somewhere

between a developing country and a developed country through industrialization; however, the Chinese

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society is originally based on agriculture and rural population, peasants in particular. During the

industrialization period, the material and human resources for urban industrialization came from rural

areas and a large number of people were sent back to rural areas for rural development projects. During

the Chinese revolution, Mao emphasized the role and commitment of rural people for the revolution

rather than labor workers (Lovbraek, 1995). He re-theorized Communism for the Chinese circumstances

and organized rural China according to his ideology. For the CCP, how to govern rural China has been

the most significant question and rural people are the most important political group for the existence of

the party. Peng Zhen, one of the NPC’s Vice Chairs, reminded other CCP leaders of “how close Party-

villager relations had been before 1949” and argued introducing democracy to rural China is “a matter of

life and death for the Party,” when he led the institutionalization of VCs (O’Brien and Li, 2000).

Institutionalization of VCs: Responsiveness from the CCP

The CCP already experienced basic-level elections during the Chinese revolution. As mentioned

above, Mao’s philosophy was the support from the mass public in rural areas was particularly important

for the revolution and nation-building. The CCP created ‘popular assemblies’ and used them to

encourage local cadres to pay attention to the demands of rural people and to be accountable. In

addition, for the CCP, the practice of basic-level elections was a good tool to emphasize the CCP is

more democratic than the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and to make local power-holders be on the

side of the CCP. In other words, the CCP intended to dominate rural communities through ‘village

assemblies,’ even though the Party did not institutionalize basic-level elections (O’Brien and Li, 2000).

When VCs appeared in the late 1980s, it reminded the CCP of its previous experiences on village

assemblies and the CCP could willingly examine the idea of VC election.

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A strong leadership inside of the CCP, particularly interested in grassroots politics, also led the

institutionalization of VC election. Peng Zhen, who was one of Vice Chairs of the National People’s

Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC), welcomed the emergence of VCs and instructed the Ministry

of Civil Affairs (MoCA) to investigate how VC elections were going on in Guangxi province, where VC

election came up for the first time.2 In 1982, VCs were written into the Constitution and defined as

‘elected and mass organizations of self-government (O’Brien and Li, 2000).’ Through VCs, Peng Zhen

expected not only the enhancement of the CCP’s rule in rural communities but also the introduction of

democracy in China. He thought the Party’s control and democratization can be compatible, because VC

is a democratic system to compensate the limitations of the Party’s rule. As a kind of direct democracy

system, VCs are run by rural people themselves, who are more knowledgeable about what and who are

necessary for village affairs than the Party, which is not able to govern millions of village and supervise

all local cadres. He really dreamed of ‘socialist democracy’ beyond the Chinese revolution and believed

the Chinese mass’ capacity is matured enough to bring and practice democracy (Shi, 1999; O’Brien and

Li, 2000).

The important point is there was a gap between Peng Zhen’s view and the CCP’s official

perspective on VCs. As mentioned above, for Peng Zhen, the ultimate goal of the institutionalization of

VCs was to build democracy in China. However, the CCP targeted the penetration of the Party’s rule

and the control of the mass public through VCs, as the Party intended during the Chinese revolution a

half-century ago. Therefore, the institutionalization process of VCs had many controversies in terms of

the relationship between VCs and township governments (the CCP branches) and election procedures in

particular. Some argued that VC should be an autonomous organization and leaders, who truly work for

2 http://www.chinabusinessreview.com/public/0803/prc_government_chart.pdf (NPC (National People’s Congress, the parliament) consists of standing committee (NPCSC) and committee dirctors. In general, NPCSC is used as another name of NPC. NPCSC’s Chair is the second ranked politician after the President of China within the CCP and NPCSC has about dozen Vice Chairs. Peng Zhen was one of them.)

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communities, should be elected by people. However, others were afraid of that VCs would violate the

Party’s control and many independent VCs would threaten political stability of the Chinese one-party

system. Therefore, they argued VC should be one of state organs or an administrative unit as the

extension of township government and VC members need to be elected by the combination of the

evaluation of higher-level authorities and voting by villagers. In fact, before the Organic Law went to

into effect, VC member were still appointed rather than elected by rural people in many areas.

However, Peng still insisted, “top-down supervision was not enough.” He emphasized that what

rural people required to the Party was not to lurch out of the Party’s control, but to have a better type of

local governance. He also proclaimed that the corruption of local cadres had been worse even to bring

the resistance of rural people against local authorities at township government and local cadres;

therefore, free and fair election should be a key part of VC to protect larger crises:

[R]ural rebellion was possible if self-government was put off…Peng went on to lament how relations between cadres and villagers had deteriorated over the ears, noting that some rural cadres ‘resorted to coercion and commandism’ while not a few had become corrupt and high-handed ‘local emperors’ (tu huangdi). If such trends were not reversed, he cautioned, villagers would ‘sooner or later attack our rural cadres with their shoulder poles.’

- Kevin O’Brien and Lianjiang Li

Finally, the Organic Law identified VC as an autonomous organization and free and fair VC election,

not the appointment of VC members by governmental authorities, was institutionalized (O’Brien and Li,

2000).

The fact that Peng Zhen’s view was reflected into the Organic Law demonstrates that the CCP

could not ignore the demands of rural people. As VC election was institutionalized into the Constitution

and became the factor affecting the distribution of state resources, the importance of rural people as

social cleavage increased. The CCP realized that local governance can be implemented with the

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assistance of VCs—the Party can maintain its power in rural areas when the Party accepts the political

system in which rural social cleavage wants.

Remaining Problems

Even after the institutionalization of VC election and its first implementation, the Party

emphasized the aspect of VCs as self-government, self-service, and self-education rather than

democratic decision-making system. Of course, right after the institutionalization of VC election,

election procedures were not completely set up and a few villages implemented them. Moreover,

conservative groups in the CCP were more skeptical of VC election when democratic uprisings at the

Tiananmen Square occurred, calling the VC election ‘bourgeois liberalization (O’Brien and Li, 2000).’

The main conservative group being against VC election was the Central Organization

Department (COD), which is a part of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the CCP.3 The

Ministry of Civil Affairs (MoCA) took the main responsibility of the institutionalization and

implementation of VC election; however, they did not have political power to motivate township

administrators, who were higher-level officials than elected local cadres in each village and had the

authority to implement VC election. Instead, the COD got the power. Top policy maker of the COD did

not fully support the Organic Law and did not create any political incentives for township

administrators. Therefore, township administrators were not motivated to champion self-government and

to implement free and fair VC election. Then, the corruption of the township authorities continued and

local cadres, who were under the control of those township officials, ignored the voice of rural people.

3 http://www.china.org.cn/english/congress/227035.htm (The Central Committee of the CCP is the most powerful organization in Chinese politics. The National People’s Congress (NPC) is the final destination for policy making process; however, in the reality, all decision making are made by the Central Committee. The Committee is run by the President of China (The General Secretary of the CCP and Central Military Commission Chair as well), while the NPC’s Chair is the second most powerful Party member after the President of China. And the NPC Chair is also one of members of the Central Committee. Therefore, some argue that the NPC is a rubber-stamp parliament.)

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Township administrators restricted voters’ freedom of choice by monopolizing nominations, conducting

snap elections, and banning other candidates’ speeches.

Next Movements of Rural Social Cleavage: Rightful Resistance

To eliminate obstacles toVC election, MoCA created a new idea. Civil affairs staffs decided to

work with provincial people’s congress instead of the COD. MoCA submitted legislative proposals to

standardize voter registration, nomination and voting procedures, the counting of ballots, etc to

provincial people’s congress. Fujian province became the first successful case. MoCA’s proposal was

included in provincial laws and MoCA could motivate township leaders into achieving better elections.

Then, MoCA reported to the provincial Discipline Inspection Commission that the corruption tended to

be lower where VC elections took place successfully (O’Brien and Li, 2000).

However, most of all, the efforts of rural people to standardize VC election were important.

Traditionally, the Chinese society does not have the culture of democratic election; therefore, rural

people were not familiar with one man/one vote and secret ballot. VC electoral procedures had to be

more detailed and standardized (Tan, 2004). Even though rural people elected their leaders when VC

appeared for the first time, it was informal. However, despite the lack of the CCP’s support of VC

election and democratic culture, rural people started to move more actively to bring back their citizens’

rights when local officials misused VC election. Actions by rural people—rightful resistance—were

considered as the main reason to correct the attitude and policies of local and central governments

regarding VC election and to spread VC election all over China (O’Brien and Li, 2000).

Citing the Organic Law and provincial regulations, rural people made complaints on the lack of

implementation of free and fair VC election at higher-level government, MoCA, and even the Beijing

government or organized social unrests. Most of all, rural people were sensitive of the corruption. They

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knew that local authorities at township government did not support fair and free election or interrupt it,

because elected VC members did not provide gifts (bribes) to the authorities. MoCA used the popular

pressure from rural people to urge local officials to implement better elections. Additionally, MoCA

gave a sympathetic hearing to delegations of villagers, who accused of low-quality elections, and

attempted to correct wrong-directed elections through investigations:

In 1994…when a group of Hebei [province] farmers came to the capital to protest against a fraudulent vote, [a] MoCA official shouted ‘bravo!’ (tai haole) upon hearing the news. He immediately dispatched two staff members to look into the charges. In the course of a long investigation that ended with the election being annulled, MoCA officials appeared three times on a popular television programme devoted to investigative journalism; in front of a national audience, they openly supported the complaints and warned other local officials to draw the appropriate lesson.

– Kevin O’Brien and Lianjiang Li

Also, MoCA officials stated that the rebellious action by rural people is the standard to evaluate whether

local authorities would receive political risks or rewards in term of their careers.

Rural people’s rightful resistance and the responses of MoCA demonstrate the rise of rural

people as social cleavage has been obvious and important for the Party. MoCA is a government body;

however, as mentioned above, the government is the Party under the Chinese one-party system.

Therefore, rural people’s resistance and MoCA’s responsiveness regarding VC election show that rural

social cleavage affects the decision-making process of the Party and strengthens the new political

institution, abolishing the old one.

Argument

Since the first implementation of VC election, the standardization of electoral rules and

grassroots democracy in China have been improved. The successful VC system in some areas becomes a

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good model for other areas.4 Now we witness many successful cases and one of them is below. Bai

Yiton is the youngest village leader and she is directly elected by her people:

Bai’s cell phone pierces the morning quiet with a shrill ring that sounds vaguely like an Avril Lavigne song. She picks it up and in a surprisingly strong voice says, “Good morning, how can I help you?” The villager on the other end of the line asks, “So did my water problem get on the agenda for today’s village government meeting?” Bai doesn’t skip a beat. In her pajamas and sneakers, she cheerfully chats with the villager, advising how he should present his irrigation issues to the village government that afternoon…The villager on the other end of the line was Bai’s constituent. At an age when most Chinese are still interns, Bai is two years into her three-year term as the youngest village chief in the country, part of a fledgling democracy permitted in China. But make no mistake, Bai is not just another Chinese Communist official. For one, she was directly elected by the people at the age of 19, unseating a male incumbent who held the office for several terms.

- Jo Ling Kent, CNN, March 4, 20115

In addition, it is assumed that VC system would be more important, because VC is the only

platform to participate in politics and VC election is the only channel to judge political leaders for rural

social cleavage. Furthermore, unlike urban people, since rural people do not have other various tools to

express their political opinions such as the Internet, the importance of VC system would increase.

VC election was originated from not only socio-economic changes in rural China but also the

rise of rural people as social cleavage. To rebuild rural China, rural people showed active political

participation and the CCP recognized the importance of their role as social cleavage again since the

Chinese revolution. Despite controversies over the purpose of VC within the CCP, the CCP finally

reflected the demands from rural people—VC should be the tool for socialist democracy beyond the

Party’s penetration into rural communities. Then, rural people’s rightful assistance has brought the

4 “Carrying Out Grassroots Democracy in China: Two Local Experiements in Governance.” http://chinaelectionsblog.net/?p=13002 (accessed May 12, 2011).

5 “China’s youngest elected village chief eyes future.” http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/02/china.youngest.village.chief/index.html (acccessed May 12, 2011).

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standardization of VC electoral procedures to implement a better qaulity of VC election. The origin of

VC election implies important points.

First, it demonstrates the party-social cleavage relations can be developed even under the

authoritarian regime with a one-party system. In general, the communication between parties and social

cleavages can be more active and free under the regimes with multiple parties. Also, various social

cleavages have various channels to demand their interests and benefits. Comparing those regimes, it is

true that a one-party system has limitations in terms of political communication and interaction, because

one-party systems turn to one-party dictatorship in many cases. However, the party-social cleavage

relations could be more important within the one-party system and the party may be more sensitive of

the actions of social cleavage, because the party’s power and identity and even the national identity are

based on the social cleavage more exclusively. The party-social cleavage relations more directly affect

national policies, nation-building, and national stability under the one-party system.

Second, even the authoritarian regime needs political legitimacy. So-called the Socialist China is

another type of authoritarian regime based on strong one-party dictatorship and a few charismatic

leaders. When the CCP’s practice was not working well in rural areas, people expressed complaints and

even were against the governmental authorities. Therefore, the CCP needed to listen to what they want

and the Party adopted basic-level election, because it is a good way to satisfy Chinese people under the

authoritarian regime with one-party dictatorship. The practice of village election does not violate the

party’s dominant rule, but allows a certain level of democracy. The case of Chinese village election

shows that even the authoritarian regime understands that legitimacy—making their people be satisfied

with the current regime and support it by being responsive to people and allowing some political

changes—is necessary for the existence of the regime.

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In conclusion, the origin of the Chinese VC election by rural social cleavage shows that Chinese

democratization would be possible and step forward. Impressed by the actions of the social cleavage, the

authoritarian government of China—the CCP—also understood democratization as an important

political task and has made efforts to achieve it. It does not mean that the establishment of the Socialist

China will be realized. So-called ‘Socialist China’ is mere propaganda/rhetoric, which is not necessarily

working anymore after the death of Mao. China has been considered as the last country with successful

socialism in the world; however, China is just one of authoritarian regimes, mainly affected by

economic accomplishments and circumstances, rather than a particular type of Communist/Socialist

country.6 But, considering 1) each authoritarian regime should choose its own way for democratic

transition, and 2) China’s own particular political, social, and economic backgrounds are well refelcted

into VC system, VC election is expected to bring democratization for Chinese circumstances and by

Chinese people:

[W]e can only proceed from China’s reality, carry out investigations and research, sum up historical experiences, draw on experiences of other countries and break a new path of our own. To this end, we have to experiment, to create and to advance step by step in a down-to-earth manner.

- Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily) February 8, 1981.

6 The Chinese authoritarian government has been allowed for economic development; then, economic growth provides an excuse for the authoritarian regime. Now, the economic development brings the political challenges to the Chinese authoritarian regime.

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Conclusion

The emergence of VCs has the socio-economic origin. Economic reform in the late 1970s

collapsed the rural commune system. Since the commune system was involved in not only economic

production but also village affairs, the new social and political system came to necessary for rural China.

However, more importantly, the appearance of VCs was led by rural people themselves. Prior to the

response of the Beijing government to the collapse of the commune system, rural people elected a group

of village leaders informally for village management and it was called ‘village committee.’ Most of all,

they needed an organization, which would truly work for them , under the circumstance that appointed

village cadres were corrupted and deteriorated village governance. Then, the Beijing government

accepted the idea of VCs to rebuild rural areas and to correct corruption. In other words, the CCP

recognized the demands from its important social cleavage—rural people. Historically, since the

Chinese society and the CCP were based on rural power, mass-cadre relations in rural areas were

already noticed as the Party-social cleavage relations, which are fundamental for the CCP’s power and

identity. The CCP institutionalized VCs and finally the rules of free and fair election were written into

the Constitution despite opponents emphasizing the Party’s control over rural communities rather than

democratization and responsiveness to rural people. After the first implementation of VC election, there

were still many remaining problems. However, rural people as social cleavage showed more active

political participation through rightful resistance and VC election procedures have been standardized.

And it is assumed that the importance of VC system as the platform for political actions of rural people

would increase. The important implication of this paper is the origin and institutionalization of VC

election by rural social cleavage show the possibility of Chinese democratization.

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Reference

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O’Brien and Lianjiang Li. “Accommodating “Democracy” in a One-Party State: IntroducingVillage Elections in China.” The China Quarterly, no. 162 (2000): 465-489.

People’s Daily (Renmin Ribao) http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/ (accessed May 12, 2011).

Tan, Qingshan. “Building institutional rules and procedures: Village election in China.” Policy Sciences 37 (2004) : 1-22.

Wang, Xu. “Mutual Empowerment of State and Peasantry: Grassroots Democracy in Rural China.” World Development 25, no.9 (1997) : 1431-1442.

Womack, Brantly. “The 1980 County-Level Elections in China: Experiment in Democratic Modernization.” Asian Survey 22, no. 3 (1982) : 261-277.