Clans, Electoral Procedures and Voter Turnout: Evidence from Villagers' Committee Elections in Transitional China
| Published date | 01 June 2011 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2011.00881.x |
| Date | 01 June 2011 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Clans, Electoral Procedures and Voter Turnout:
Evidence from Villagers’ Committee Elections in
Transitional Chinapost_881 432..457
Fubing Su Tao Ran Xin Sun Mingxing Liu
Vassar College Renmin University Northwestern University Peking University
Villagers’ committee elections in Chinese rural areas highlight the promise as well as the challenge of democratization
in a one-party state.Why are there huge regional variations in terms of voter turnout rate? Based on a large survey
conducted in 2005, weargue that electoral procedures have played a crucial role in signaling the democratic intent of
local governments. Villagers were more responsive to more meaningful elections with higher-quality electoral
procedures. In addition, competitive politics has reactivated traditional social ties and networks in village lives, which
have mobilized villagers to voting stations. The results are robust to endogeneity tests and other model specifications.
These empirical findings highlight electoral dynamics that are common in many transitional democracies. They also
imply some major challenges facing China’s rural democracy.
Keywords: clans; village elections; electoral procedures; democracy; China
Wealth and market economy are generally believed to be the foundation of a democracy.
East Asian countries, such as South Korea and Taiwan, seem to fit this log ic quite well.
In a similar fashion, market liberalization and economic prosper ity since the early 1980s
have gradually reshaped China’s political landscape and some glimmers of democracy
have emerged. After initial trials and fierce debates among the ruling elite, democratic
elections have been accepted as the legitimate means of selecting leaders in Chinese
villages. Since the passage of the national law in 1998, hundreds of millions of rural
residents have participated in elections ever y three years (Bai, 2001; Kelliher, 1997; Liu,
2000; O’Brien and Li, 2000; Pastor and Tan, 2000). Villagers’ committee (VC) elections
have attracted much scholarly attention ( Jennings, 1997; Kennedy, 2002; 2007; Li, 2001;
2003; Manion, 1996; 2006; Shi, 1999; Zhong and Chen, 2002). These studies as well as
many anecdotes reported from fieldwork have revealed tremendous regional variations.
While residents exercise their power enthusiastically and effectively in some villages,
elections in other parts of the country draw very few participants. How can the regional
variation in voter turnout be explained? In other words, what factors have driven vil-
lagers to participate in VC elections?
Individual-level factors, such as age, education, gender and efficacy, have been shown to
affect villagers’ turnout decisions (Shi, 1999; Zhong and Chen, 2002). Uneven spatial
distribution of these factors may partially explain regional variation in voter turnout. A
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2011.00881.x
POLITICAL STUDIES: 2011 VOL 59, 432–457
© 2011The Authors. Political Studies © 2011 Political StudiesAssociation
more comprehensive explanation,however,must take account of the fact that VC elections
are embedded in local institutional contexts. How local communities are organized and
governed inevitably shapes the electoral dynamics as well as overall turnout rate. Therefore
community-level factors should be responsible for some differences across regions. Drawing
on a large national survey conducted in 2005, we explore two such variables in this article.
Our empirical analysis shows that clans (zong zu) as a traditional organizational principle
have regained their influence in governing rural communities. Villages with a small number
of identifiable and dominant clans, especially when they have experienced inter-clan rivalry
in the past, tend to energize their members for higher turnout. In the meantime, despite
their growing presence in the countryside, the role of religious organizations in village
elections is still negligible. In addition to social organizations, the second community-level
variable is electoral procedures. These procedures regulate how election committees are
formed, how candidates are nominated, whether voting secrecy is guaranteed and if proxy
voting and roving ballot boxes are allowed.Local governments have adopted very different
sets of procedures and the regression results indicate that more democratic and transparent
electoral rules attract more participation.
This article contributes to the existing literature in at least three ways. First, our basic unit
of analysis is village. This is different from most turnout studies in the China field. Other
scholars have also tried to understand why some people go out to vote inVC elections (Shi,
1999; Zhong and Chen, 2002). In their cases, the unit of analysis is individual villager.
Village-level data, as indicated earlier, offer a more direct measurement of the institutional
variables at the village level. Therefore, our approach complements the existing studies and
highlights somewhat different dimensions in understanding a phenomenon as complicated
asVC elections.1Second, students of Chinese rural society have become increasingly aware
of the growing importance of clans, especially in the context of VC elections (Li, 1994;
Manion, 2006; Mao, 1991; O’Brien and Han, 2009; Xiao, 2001). Most studies are based on
in-depth interviews and careful observations of some villages in parts of China. Our analysis
tests the impact of clans on village elections using a large national sample.We hope that our
findings can convince more scholars to develop better measures for clan str ucture and
examine this important topic in villagers’ lives.
Finally, our study confirms another causal mechanism of electoral procedures on turnout.
In mature democracies, electoral procedures can affect voters’ calculation of voting costs;
therefore they become easily politicized (Fornos et al., 2004; Wolfinger and Rosenstone,
1980). In a transitional country like China, local governments still have a lot of room to
manipulate the voting rules, therefore electoral procedures first and foremost serve as a
signal of the democratic intent of the local authorities. While more transparent procedures
draw more people to the process,villagers tend to avoid elections with a high possibility of
government manipulation.Chinese village elections under a one-par ty system offer an ideal
experimental setting to study this mechanism. This dynamic should apply to other tran-
sitional democracies as well. In their studies of transitional democracies in Africa, Michelle
Kuenzi and Gina Lambright (2007) found that quality of democracy is positively associated
with turnout. More comparative studies in this direction should enrich our under standing
of democratic transition.
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