Making democracy work the crafting and manipulation of chinese village democracy by political elites 6

This study has concentrated on the political elites at several levels as the primary actors in process of village elections in China: national, provincial, county and township, and villa

Chapter 6 Conclusion: Experiences and Implications

The Difference between Political Survival and Breakdown is a Question of “Political Crafting”

Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan 1

Democracy can be crafted to be attractive

Giuseppe Di Palma 2

The idea of elite as a democracy-promoting actor has attracted vast interest in the past several decades in Western academia This study has concentrated on the political elites at several levels as the primary actors in process of village elections in China: national, provincial, county and township, and village

This thesis therefore has traced the roles of political elites in Chinese village elections via an examination of their crafting and manipulation, and demonstrated that the elite perspective does capture the important elements of the process of rural democratization and may provide important insight into village democracy and even into the future of democratization in the whole country of China After years of village self-governance, it has been increasingly and obviously recognized that the role of political elites at different levels is a critical determinant of the democratic quality of village elections Thus, without the forward oriented efforts of insightful political elites’ democracy may remain a remote goal for rural Chinese people

1

Alfred Stepan, “Political Crafting of Democratic Consolidation or Destruction: European and South

American Comparisons,” (with Juan Linz), in Arguing Comparative Politics (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2001), 138

2

Giuseppe Di Palma, To Craft Democracies: an Essay on Democratic Transitions (Berkley, Los

6.1 Main Findings

There is no doubt that village elections and self-governance are based on the experiences of the peasants in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, who established villagers’ committees on their own But, as an institution, village self-governance and its improvement could not have occurred without a reformist leadership that initiated institutionalizing Guangxi farmers’ experience, formulating the laws, rules and regulations concerned, making relevant policies, and pursuing them; in other words this could not have occurred without the crafting of political elites at different levels Political elites in China function as a “helping hand” for village elections, and thereby promoting rural democratization

6.1.1 Path toward Democratization: Political Elites Lead China’s Rural Democratization

This study can come to the conclusion that China has and will continue to move towards democracy along the elite-led road, whereas neither the model of liberal democracy nor the model of popular democracy is realistic choices Although the term elitism sounds more like an accusation than recognition of superior qualities, the way

to democracy led by the elite is realistic and feasible The achievements up to the present with rural democracy in China have been obtained mainly through the endeavours of elites This, however, does not mean that this study denies the contributions of peasants and other actors to village democracy

The success of democracy in rural China defies some prevailing theories that stipulate preconditions for democracy: rural China is not an industrialized, developed economy; rural China is short of civic culture and especially short of democratic

tradition Chinese democracy is thus best understood by focusing, not mainly on its socioeconomic determinants, but on how it is crafted by political elites

The Chinese experience is not completely unique Terry L Karl finds that democracies that came about through elite-directed compromise have tended to be the most stable.3 Andrew Nathan thinks, “Elite democracy in many countries was a step toward full democracy because it allowed competitive institutions to become established before mass participation began.”4 Taiwan’s democratization illustrates the points that the prospects for a competitive system are best when a democracy is the result of transition through government-led transformation.5 Tien Hungmao argues that Taiwan had all the necessary conditions for democracy, but the democratic transition had to await the ruling elite’s support for further reforms and the opposition leadership’s willingness to cooperate with these reforms Chiang Ching-Kuo, the paramount leader of the KMT, is generally acknowledged for his critical role in implementing Taiwanese liberalization reforms and democratization His flexible tactics in responding to challenges of democratization are very important to Taiwan’s democratic development.6

This elite-led transition to democracy is limited; on one hand “while elites may have been self-motivated by power struggles or concerns with inner party legitimacy

at the start of the reform crisis, over time the dominant role of central decision makers

3

Karl, Terry Lynn, “Dilemmas of Democratization in Latin America,” in Comparative Political

Dynamics: Global Research Perspectives, eds Dankwart A Rustow and Kenneth Paul Erickson (New

York: Harper Collins, 1991), 180-1

4

Andrew Nathan, “Chinese Democracy: the Lessons of Failure,” in China and Democracy: the

Prospect for A Democratic China, ed Zhao Suishen (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), 27

5

Hermann Giliomee and Charles Simkins eds., The Awkward Embrace: One-party Domination and

Democracy (Harwood academic publishers, 1999), 338

6

See Tien Hung-mao, “Elections and Taiwan’s Democratic Development,” in Taiwan’s Electoral

Politics and Democratic Transition: Riding the Third Wave, eds Charles Chi-hsing Ching et al

in the reform process declines.” On the other hand this model usually bears a striking characteristic of artificialness, changing with the change of leaders’ understanding, attention, and willpower People would believe “other factors begin to play a more important role in forcing change.” 7 However, to transcend the elite-led democratization, there is still a long way to go

6.1.2 Major Roles

The roles of political elites at different levels are summarized in Table 6.1

Table 6.1 Political Elites’ Roles at Different Levels in Their Crafting Village Democracy in China Elites at different

Symbolic Politics Elites at National

Level (MCA)

Li Xuejue Bai Yihua Wang Zhenyao Zhan Chengfu

Crafting, engineering new institutions, democratic institutional design and summing up the local experiences and then spreading them

Reform Politics

Elites at Provincial

Level

Zhang Xiaogan Zhang Zhenlang

Crafting, diffusing, distributing, summing

up the local experiences and then spreading them

Distributive politics

Elites at

County-Township Level

Feng Yongcheng Zhou Lianjun Liu Zhenlong

Li Guomin

Crafting, manipulating, distributing, operating

Loyal Politics Local Politics

Elites at Village Level Han Xingfu

Han Mingsen Zhu Qiming

Li Si Zhang Baijiang etc.*

Organizing, manipulating creating, crafting, challenging, doing democracy

Citizenship Politics

* This list of names is from <http://www.chinarural.org/zlk.asp?booktime=1996 >

7

Daniel V Dowd, Allen Carlson, and Shen Mingming, “The Prospects for Democratization in China:

Evidence from the 1995 Beijing Area Study,” in China and Democracy: the Prospect for A Democratic

The above table can be represented in another way (see following figure)

Figure 6.1 Political Elites’ Roles at Different Levels in Their Crafting of Village

Democracy in China National Policy Guidance

Ministry of Civil Affairs -> Outlines central government relevant

Laws, rules and regulations on village

Self-governance

|

|

Provincial Policy Guidance Provincial Department -> Diffuses National polices and laws; provides Of Civil Affairs provincial laws of implementing “the Organic

Law”, measures, policies

|

|

County and Township County and Township Policy Guidance Authorities -> Set out policies for village self-governance at Locality; specify measures and ways |

|

Village -> Doing Democracy Employs all of the laws, policies, measures provided by superiors, and resources, means to practicing village democracy In the case of village elections, party-governmental officials have contributed to the process of crafting village democracy This study finds that the internal structure and composition of political elites are crucial to our understanding of how political elites may contribute to democratic development in rural China The emergence and implementation of village elections in rural China is best described as one initiated and guided by political elites at different levels of governments After the implementation, village elites and other actors appeared on the scene, being an important power for crafting village democracy

National: Building Democratic Institutions and Making Laws and Policies

Among the top Chinese leaders, Peng Zhen in league with Bo Yibo and Song Ping were the most important people who strongly supported village self-governance Their roles imply symbolic politics The reform-oriented officials at MCA were empowered to administer the village elections and self-governance work under the support of national top leaders Of them, Wang Zhenyao and his colleagues played a crucial role

The elites clustered around the Civil Affairs system were the core for the implementation and promotion of village self-governance Without these officials, there would not be fruitful achievements in rural democracy This study regards the role of political elites at national level as an engine on the way to rural democracy, a designer and promoter for rural democratic institutions In crafting village democracy within administrative levels, political elites at the national level play the role of reforming rural politics They designed electoral laws, supplied policies concerned, arranged relevant institutions, summed up and spread grassroots experiences and innovations, and guided and supervised the implementation of village elections and self-governance at lower levels Their crafting is reform politics

Provincial: Delivering and Implementing the Policies

The unevenness of democratic quality of village elections among provinces effectively demonstrates the importance of provincial elites’ roles This thesis has noted this phenomenon: the process of village self-governance in the past two decades has been characterized by a variety of levels of democratic quality of village elections amongst the provinces The geographic basis of the village self-governance situation

is clearly tied to which provincial political elites are supportive and how they craft

village democracy A core group of provincial officials worked together to develop election practices; their capacity became a crucial factor in implementing village self-governance This study finds that the leading officials at provincial departments of Civil Affairs and their networks play a vital role in implementing village self-governance The core role is to diffuse central law and relevant rules and policies Crafting at this level belongs to distributive politics

The core role is to diffuse central law and relevant rules and policies Crafting

at this level belongs to a distributive politics

County and Township: Implementing the Policies and Organizing Elections

County and township authorities have played complex and diverse roles, which can not be classified simply as ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ All things considered, crafting and manipulating are two main performances of elites at county or township level when they are faced with implementing village elections and self-governance

Obviously, local authorities play a role of forming a connecting link between leaderships above and the masses below, from national and provincial governments all the way down to the villages They are the crucial piece in the political elites’ chain of crafting village democracy, operating as a “hinge” at the meeting point of state and society If the national and provincial elites are the makers and providers of the laws and institutions concerned, the officials at county and township levels are the carriers

As the carriers, they mainly send out the instructions, policies, and laws from higher authorities Therefore, their most important role is to implement the laws, rules and regulations concerned

In essence, local elites’ crafting village democracy is a loyal politics, because whether and how they can implement village self-governance is an indicator of

whether they are loyal to higher authorities Meanwhile, local elites’ crafting village democracy is a local politics, because the process of the implementation is obviously characterized by localism, either active or nonexistent construction of village democracy

Village: Handling and Operating Elections

After the implementation of village elections, village elites and other actors appeared on the scene as an important power for crafting village democracy There is

a considerable degree of regional variation of village elites’ functions and attitudes toward village elections among village elites

Village elites are the spokespersons of villagers and of community interests, practitioners and operators of village elections, and the creators of the new political participation mechanisms They have some channels and abilities for helping safeguard peasants’ legitimate interests and rights Since they have popularity, power, and various resources for political mobilization village elites are considered the main practitioners and operators of village democracy They have more information channels, are more articulate in explaining their interests, and can skillfully follow the democratic procedures Of what they do, election campaigns are probably the most worth noticing in village elections Village elites have definitely played a crucial role

in crafting village democratic participation mechanisms although we cannot attribute all these mechanisms to them alone Among the innovations, the most significant and influential were “sea election” and “the villager-representative assembly”

Meanwhile the village party branch secretaries have made a strong impact on village elections because of their special position in the village power structure Their basic attitude toward village elections is passive, while control or manipulation is the

secretary’s main act However, with the introduction of village elections, as the core leadership position, the party branch authority is being challenged

6.1.3 Crafting Strategies

The picture of village democracy varies from one place to another and depends

on the political elites as the artists The quality of village elections and the fate of village self-governance and democracy are affected at length by political elites’ deeds and strategies Localities with remarkable achievement in village elections and self-governance usually have gained strong support from provincial or county or township authorities In addition, the political elites that comprise these authorities can employ suitable strategies to implement village elections Rural democracy is a “fraudulent” one, meaning it is the result of the strategic choice by the political elites who have been in charge of the rural elections and self-governance, and have adopted some tactics which are beneficial to rural democratic development, so as to lessen the resistance from opponents and the kinds of worries for rural stability and the party’s control of rural communities

National Level

Three kinds of resources the elites employed have been identified and analyzed: top leaders’ support, expectations and pressures from peasants, and their own interest in the pursuit, through which they can and have effectively constructed a sound environment, formulated the law, rules and regulations, and policies, built institutions, and trained the executors for village elections and self-governance All in all, these elites have efficiently used various means, methods, and strategies to build a momentum for village self-governance, and then force the issue onto local agendas

Political elites at national levels crafted village democracy mainly through (1) Building a sound circumstance; (2) Making laws, rules and regulations, and polices; (3) Institutional building; (4) Relying on the China Council for the Promotion of Basic- Level Governments and Mass Organizations; and (5) Three co-operation projects: Chinese Rural Cadres Training Center Programme, Chinese Village Affairs Management Training Programs: the Co-Operation between MCA and EU, and the Standardization of Villagers’ Committee Election Procedures

Provincial Level

Although political elites’ initiative and innovation are a political precondition for developing village self-governance, they need some agents to implement the policies concerned and develop village democracy Whether this type of network exists and how strong it is, in a sense, are also important to the democratic quality of village elections The political elites at the provincial level have employed five major strategies to craft village democracy: (1) Elite cooperation; (2) Local legislature; (3) Political responsibility; (4) Political programming; and (5) the Art of balancing between the party leadership and village elections

Positive Acts Local leaders at county and township levels are capable of a

more positive role, and can be a necessary and indispensable force for rural elections

and democracy.Strategic acts include the followings: (1) Focus on Putting the Laws and Regulations into Effect.More and more local leaders have realized that working

in accordance with the law is a basic precondition for smoothly conducting village elections “Conducting village elections in accordance with the law” is a commonly used slogan (2) Finding Typical Cases and Set Them as Examples In China, the setting of examples and then spreading their experiences to other places is a traditional and important way to implement a policy or build an institution, commonly employed by authorities of all levels (3) Development Strategy Local officials who willingly promote village democracy always emphasize and highlight the significance

of village self-governance to rural economic development (4) Balancing the Several Relationships Three relationships are crucial if local leaders intend to decrease all kinds of obstructions to effectively implement village self-governance: the relationships between township and village, between implementation of government affairs and autonomy, and between the party leadership and village self-governance or

village party branch and village committee (liang wei hui)

However, only when these strategies are translated into more specific measures or activities can local officials effectively implement village self-governance and promote village democracy The followings are the main measures: propagandizing, mobilizing and organizing elections, providing models for regulations, making plans and setting an agenda for the elections, the trainings of personnel, and financial support

Negative Acts As democratic Machiavellianism, local leaders are faced Most manipulators were township officials Manipulation can be found during the election and after the election, first in the control of the electoral procedure, and then in the control of the elected village cadres This study here mapped the various

double-means local elites chose to control or manipulate village elections (1) Putting emphasis on local rules and regulations at the expense of national ones, and the control of information (2) Local governments control through the setting up of leading groups for the village election (3) Holding meetings to let village cadres know the township government’s view of who are the ideal candidates for the committee; (4) Influencing villagers’ attitudes and behaviours Local leaders and particularly township officials do their best to influence the attitude and behaviour of the villagers through their authority and personal prestige (5) Directly interfering with the candidates’ nomination Another manifestation of local governments control is direct interference with the nomination of candidates (6) During the post-election many township governments control village committees with financial means

Village Level

This study focuses on a set of contextual factors, including institutional and organizational dynamics, existing social network, information, and communication channels, which condition or constrain village elites’ process of practicing village democracy

Village elites have taken the following strategic acts to protect villagers’ democratic rights and promote rural democracy They make use of laws and institutions, the masses’ emotion and interest in public issues, external forces, and even peasant’s complaints and protest In fact, at the village level, the crafting of rural democracy in China is achieved through the process of how to rise to power, how to stay in power, and how to pass it on in village elections This study specifically focuses on election campaigns and competition as an important democratic practice The study analyses the preconditions of the emergence of political campaigns and

factors that prompt the village elections to become more and more competitive It also lists some grassroots resources for village electoral campaigns, and summarizes three strategies of village electoral campaigns: canvassing the shifting voters, “playing the economic card”, and employing as many resources as possible with the aim to establish campaign networks

Furthermore, village elites created more democratic participation mechanisms, through which the quality of village elections has been improved Villagers’ representative assembly is a great innovation showing the political wisdom of Chinese village politicians The villagers’ representative assembly serves essentially as a legislature However, the configuration of villagers’ representative assembly and how

it works reveal the elite governing principle

“Control” or “manipulation” is a basic tactic employed by village party branches when facing the situation of village elections, although there is no lack of the village party branches They also join the ranks of crafting or developing new political mechanisms to promote village democracy The party branch secretaries have made efforts and taken a number of measures to control or manipulate village elections First, the party secretaries are usually the heads of the village election committees Second, the party branch can specifically guide or manipulate the process of the elections through nominating or checking-up on candidate qualifications Third, these newly elected village committees’ leaders may probably be invited to become the vice-party secretary Fourth, the policies concerning the important affairs are made by both the party branch and the villagers’ committee, by which township party committee and government can effectively control the village party branch and thereby villagers’ committee too However, after around two decades of the practices

of village elections and with the political reform’s going on, the party secretaries find

it more and more difficult to directly manipulate village elections In view of this situation, the party has to change its methods of control in village elections, rethinking its attitude towards and ways to deal with the elections So far there are many strategies employed by the party branches to meet the challenge of village elections Among them, some are active, and some passive The followings are indicative of this change Now party members or party secretaries would run for the positions of villager’s committees; the practice of manipulating the candidates of villagers’ committees has given way to manipulating the selection of villagers’ representatives and the control of the process of policy-making

6.1.4 Two Regularities

From the trajectory of political elites’ crafting village democracy, we can find two patterns there One is the higher the position of political elites in governmental hierarchy, the more willing they are to craft and promote village democracy, conversely, the lower the position, the more possible controls of manipulating village democracy Comparatively speaking, provincial authority and central government are active and positive in implementing village elections, whereas county and township governments probably take a more passive and perfunctory attitude Many empirical facts show that one of the strongest forces resisting the introduction of village elections indeed comes from township governments and village party branches Based

on her questionnaire conducted in Yunnan in February 2003, for example, Li Shiyang also confirms that the higher the position of governmental officials, the more active

they are toward village elections; and vice versa.8

8

Li Shiyang, “Xianxiang ganbu dui cunweihui xuanjie di yingxiang tiaocha baogao” (“A Survey of the Influence of County and Township’s Cadres on Village Elections”), EU-China Training Program on Village Governance (July 2003)

The second is that government agency, specifically speaking, the Civil Affairs Departments at all levels are more active than the party’s Organizational Departments

in implementing village elections and self-governance and promoting village democracy Party-state is not a unitary agency, but consists of different departments and multi-level agencies with different roles, functions, and interests Types of craftsmen who craft village elections are also good proof The structure of political elites is to a great extent relevant to rural democratization The Civil Affairs system is responsible for village elections and self-governance, and it becomes the crucial political force for promoting village democracy On the other side the opposition is more likely from the CCP’s organizational departments and local leaders There are,

of course, exceptions to this pattern

These two patterns show that institutional innovation and even democratic idea from higher authorities are still a crucial force to further promote Chinese democracy, and elite-led democratization in rural China can be called a re-division of labor

6.2 Crafting with Striking Chinese Characteristics

Although sharing some common experiences of world democratization, the democratization in rural China has its exceptional experiences with Chinese characteristics.9 This study here puts Chinese village elections in a comparative perspective

9

Some Chinese scholars and officials have summarized the unique characteristics of China’s rural democracy For example, Liu Xitang presents four characteristics: government activeness, individual participation, benefits, and gradualism See Liu Xitang, “Cunmin zizhi yu zhongguo xiangcun minzhu

de teshuxing” (“Village Self-governance and the Uniqueness of China’s Rural Democracy”), Zhongguo

6.2.1 Actors: the “Insiders of the System” instead of the “Outsiders of the System”

Many of the transitions to democracy in Latin American countries and Eastern

European countries were driven by “forces outside the system” (ti zhi wai)

Theoretically the attitudes, choices, and decisions of political actors in the transition to democracy are not free from influences and pressures from other elite groups However, other elite groups have not had strong effects on the rural democratisation

of China, which is different from the process of democratisation of Latin American countries and Eastern and Southern European countries For example, the military in Latin American countries have had a very powerful effect on the transition process Taiwan’s case also indicates that the incumbent elite, not the position of political leverage, was granted a fairly free hand in limiting the scope and speed of democratic reform and crafting new political institutions during the process of democratization.10

Some scholars point out that a key independent variable in Chinese democratization is the laying of institutional foundations for democracy by those who occupy leading positions within the authoritarian regimes.11 The rural democratization

in China was driven by political elites, the “insiders of the system” (ti zhi nei)

Actually both the opposing force and the reformers of village self-governance are situated inside the system The incumbent governing leaders rather than non-governing elite and opposite political leaders contributed to the rural democratization

in China The very fact is that many Chinese intellectuals and “democratic elites” did not care about village elections Thereby, as “insiders of the system”, political elites crafting village democracy are mostly driven by policies concerned; thereby this democracy can be called a “policy-driven democracy” In the meantime, this

10

Chu Yun-han, “Taiwan’s Unique Challenges,” in Democracy in East Asia, eds Larry Diamond and

Marc F Plattner (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 134

democracy is a “pressurised democracy”: pressures from both top-down and

bottom-up

Furthermore, in some regions, for example, in Eastern Europe, usually the political elites at the national but not local levels crafted democracy, whereas many rounds of interacting and negotiating between the upper elites and local elites over village elections resulted in democratic development in rural China The interactions between upper and local elites and the one between elites and the masses have jointly contributed to the development of rural democracy in China

6.2.2 Governmental Positions in Crafting Village Democracy

Many scholars have pointed out that political values have long been a major focus in elite study as well as comparative politics and area studies They believe that democratic values and ideas are a fundamental orientation that elites tend to hold and that are linked with behaviours.12 Regarding village elections in rural China, the International Republic Institute argues that at the core of the problem is the lack of democratic tradition in China, and it is not clear whether village elections are as a democratic right or an authoritarian privilege “The lack of a democratic political culture is obvious at several levels”.13 In fact, there is no lack of such people taking democratic value and ideas among political elites, and this study does not deny the

University Press, 1973)

13

Amy Epstein Gadsden and Anne F Thurston, “Village Elections in China: Progress, Problems, and

importance of democratic ideas in crafting village democracy However, to rural democratization, a position is more important than democratic ideas.14

Here we may make a comparison between Li Peng’s and Zhao Ziyang’s attitudes towards the village election, which is interesting and meaningful Zhao Ziyang, former general secretary of the CCP, though thought to be representative of China’s reformism, did not care about the village election, whereas, ironically, Li Beng, a “conservative”, as chairman of the National People’s Congress (NPC), strongly supported the Organic Law to be enacted, knew the law very well, and was willing to go to the countryside to do surveys on the implementation of the laws concerned

Wang Zhenyao once admitted that he and his colleagues had not clearly seen the democratic value in village self-governance during the initial stage of the implementation.15 What is more, there is a utility or pragmatical understanding of democracy in the political elites’ limited democratic ideas To many Chinese people including scholars and government officials, democracy is attractive because it brings good things, specifically, democracy is equated with economic growth, or democracy

is necessary or conducive to development Many political elites who are in charge of village elections also share this understanding of democracy In fact, democracy will not necessarily ensure happiness or an ideal life Democracy is nothing more than a device, a means, to avoid disasters brought on by the arbitrariness of dictators

14

It seems that political elites have crafted village democracy under the relative absence of the influence of democratic value and ideas Most of them have not been exposed much to democratic ideals and their contents, and have no experience in running democratic institutions On top of this, there is a lack of mechanisms for democratic socializing under Chinese culture and China’s current political system Even those who are themselves called “democratic elites” or “democratic fighters” lack democratic spirit judging from their actions

15

Wang Zhenyao, interviewed by the author, Beijing, September 2001