Grassroots Elections in China
Twenty years after the launch of village elections, the time is ripe to assess the progress and impact of Chinas most notable political reform. Where have elections been conducted well and where have they been conducted poorly? How have procedures changed over the years and have elections truly transformed how power is exercised in the countryside? What methods are researchers employing to study elections and how have scholars from different disciplines contributed to our knowledge of grassroots politics in China?
This book carefully examines the implementation and effects of Chinas village, township, and peoples congress elections, both in terms of democratizing the polity and spurring other changes in state-society relations.
The chapters in this book, except for the introduction, were previously published in the Journal of Contemporary China,.
Kevin J. OBrien is Alann P. Bedford Professor of Asian Studies and Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, USA.
Suisheng Zhao is Editor of the Journal of Contemporary China, and Professor and Executive Director at the Center for China-US Cooperation, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver, USA.
Grassroots Elections in China
Edited by
Kevin J. OBrien and Suisheng Zhao
First published 2011
by Routledge
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First issued in paperback 2013
2011 Taylor & Francis
This book is a reproduction of a selection of articles from the Journal of Contemporary China. The Publisher requests to those authors who may be citing this book to state, also, the bibliographical details of the special issues on which the book was based.
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ISBN13: 978-0-415-57157-9 (hardback)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-84805-3 (paperback)
Disclaimer
The publisher would like to make readers aware that the chapters in this book are referred to as articles as they had been in the special issue. The publisher accepts responsibility for any inconsistencies that may have arisen in the course of preparing this volume for print.
Contents
Kevin J. OBrien
Kevin J. OBrien and Rongbin Han
(Journal of Contemporary China, Volume 18, Number 60, June 2009)
Melanie Manion
(Journal of Contemporary China, Volume 18, Number 60, June 2009)
Gunter Schubert
(Journal of Contemporary China, Volume 18, Number 60, June 2009)
John James Kennedy
(Journal of Contemporary China, Volume 18, Number 60, June 2009)
Bjrn Alpermann
(Journal of Contemporary China, Volume 18, Number 60, June 2009)
Qingshan Tan
(Journal of Contemporary China, Volume 18, Number 60, June 2009)
Zongze Hu
(Journal of Contemporary China, Volume 17, Number 57, November 2008)
Qingshan Tan and Xin Qiushui
(Journal of Contemporary China, Volume 16, Number 53, November 2007)
Jude Howell
(Journal of Contemporary China, Volume 15, Number 49, November 2006)
Guo Zhenglin with Thomas P. Bernstein
(Journal of Contemporary China, Volume 13, Number 39, May 2004)
David Zweig and Chung Siu Fung
(Journal of Contemporary China, Volume 16, Number 50, February 2007)
Rong Hu
(Journal of Contemporary China, Volume 14, Issue 44, August 2005)
Tianjian Shi
(Journal of Contemporary China, Volume 8, Issue 22, November 1999)
Dong Lisheng
(Journal of Contemporary China, Volume 15, Number 48, August 2006)
He Junzhi
(Journal of Contemporary China, Volume 19, Number 64, March 2010)
Bjrn Alpermann is Assistant Professor for Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Wrzburg, Germany. His publications include The State in the Village: Rural Self-Administration in China (Hamburg, 2001, in German), Chinas Cotton Industry: Economic Transformation and State Capacity (London and New York, 2010) and the edited volume Politics and Markets in Rural China (London and New York, forthcoming).
Thomas P. Bernstein is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Columbia University in New York. His books include Taxation without Representation in Contemporary Rural China, co-authored with L Xiaobo (Cambridge, 2003); China Learns from the Soviet Union, 1949-Present, co-edited with Li Hua-yu (Lexington Books, 2010).
Siu Fung Chung is Lecturer at the School of Health, University of New England, Australia. She also teaches research methods in the Education, Health & Professional Studies Programs. She has diverse research interests across the social sciences, public policy and management, health care and public health.
Dong Lisheng is Professor of Political Science at the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China. His books include The Provision of Public Goods in China (China Society Press, 2007), Combating Vote-Buying in Village Committee Elections (China Society Press, 2005) and A Comparative Study of the Central-Local Government Relations in EU Member States (Press of China University of Political Science and Law, 2000).
Guo Zhenglin is Professor of Political Science at Zhongshan University, Guangzhou, and director of the Institute for Local Government.
Rongbin Han is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley.
He Junzhi is Associate Professor of Political Science at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs and Vice Director of the Center for Electoral and Parliamentary Systems Studies at Fudan University, Shanghai. His research interests include comparative electoral systems and parliamentary systems, especially Chinas Peoples Congress System.
Jude Howell is Professor and Director of the Centre for Civil Society at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is the author and co-author of five books and over 45 articles and book chapters on the related themes of governance, civil society, development and gender, both generally and specifically on China. Her latest publications include Governance in China (Rowman and Littlefield, 2004), Gender and Civil Society (with Diane Mulligan) (Routledge, 2004), and Civil Society and Development (with Jenny Pearce) (Lynne Rienner Inc., 2001).
Rong Hu is Mingjiang Chair Professor of Sociology at Xiamen University, China. His books include Sociology: An Analysis of Social Unities (Xiamen, 1995), Rational Choice and Institutional Implementation: Village Elections in Rural China (Shanghai, 2001) and Social Capital and Local Governance (Beijing, 2009).
