Economic development and mass political participation in contemporary China: determinants of provincial petition (Xinfang) activism 1994–2002
| DOI | 10.1177/0192512111409528 |
| Date | 01 January 2012 |
| Published date | 01 January 2012 |
Article
International Political Science Review
33(1) 99–120
© The Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/0192512111409528
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Corresponding author:
Wooyeal Paik, Academy of East Asian Studies, Sungkyunkwan University, 53 Myungnyun-dong 3-ga, Jongno-gu, Seoul,
Korea 110-745, Korea.
Email: woopaik@skku.edu
Economic development and
mass political participation in
contemporary China: determinants
of provincial petition (Xinfang)
activism 1994–2002
Wooyeal Paik
Sungkyunkwan University
Abstract
Rapid economic development has increased mass political participation in market reform China. Many
electoral authoritarian regimes with a good record of economic development have experienced the growing
participation of elite/middle-class citizens. Under the Chinese Communist Party regime, however, the poor
mass is the main group to participate drastically more. This is because despite rapid aggregate growth, the
mass have suffered extensively from excessive exploitation with high levels of corruption and inequality,
which benefits many local elites. The regime has evaded authoritarian election but channeled such mounting
participatory demands into an extensive petition (Xinfang) institution nationwide. As a result, the mass
petition activism has rapidly increased since the early 1990s. This article finds the specific determinants of
such petition activism with newly assembled data on provincial petition frequency and multiple case studies.
Keywords
authoritarian regime, Chinese politics, economic development, petition activism, political participation
1. Introduction
Has rapid economic development increased political participation in market reform China? Many
would expect so because a large number of authoritarian regimes with a good record of economic
development have experienced some steady increase of their citizens’ political participation,
ending in democratization (Geddes, 1999, 2007). Economic development improves citizens’
education and strengthens political recognition, encouraging them to participate in politics to
protect their rights to life and property, in many cases, by voting out the dictator who attempts to
take away those rights (Lipset, 1959; Moore, 1966). This is a core idea of ‘modernization theory’,
100 International Political Science Review 33(1)
which has been a key theory in the relationship between development and participation (Boix and
Stokes, 2003; Burkhart and Lewis-Beck, 1994; Geddes, 2007).
It is unclear, however, whether we can or cannot use modernization theory to understand the
patterns of political participation in market reform China. Chinese citizens participate more, but
their participation pattern is different from their counterparts’ in other developmental authoritarian
regimes, such as previous South Korea and Taiwan and other exemplary cases of modernization
theory. It is not the elite and middle class, whom modernization theory assumes as the primary
force and leader of increasing participation, that actively participate in politics (Chen, 2002; Chen
and Dickson, 2010; Tsai, 2007), but rather the poor masses who are generally the subject of elite
mobilization that lead the participatory trend (Cai, 2004; O’Brien and Li, 2006). Why do the latter
participate more while the former hesitates to join and lead in mass participation? What are the
determinants of mass participation? In all eventualities, what are its preliminary implications for
China’s potential regime transition?
In this context, this paper questions the applicability of the ‘middle class-oriented’ modernization
theory to market reform China, and pays more attention to mass political participation, which is
explained more convincingly by the theory of contentious politics (McAdam et al., 2001; O’Brien,
2008; O’Brien and Li, 2006; Piven and Cloward, 1977; Scott, 1985). ‘Contentious politics’ means
‘episodic, public, and collective interaction among makers of claims and their objects when (a) a
government is a claimant, an object of claims, or a party to the claims and (b) the claims would, if
realized, affect the interests of at least one of the claimants’ (McAdam et al., 2001: 5). In this vein,
I propose that mass participation is primarily motivated by the exploitative nature of economic
development and its negative impacts on the poor. In conclusion, this paper also cautiously adds
that we cannot connect soaring mass participation to potential regime transition at this time,
because it is neither connected with, nor mobilized by, the opportunistic elites.
Despite having a stunning average growth rate of 9.6 percent GDP since Deng Xiaoping launched
the ‘economic reform and open to outside (gaigekaifang)’ policies in 1978 (Chinese Statistical
Yearbooks, 1980–2005), this did not satisfy the overall demands of many citizens. In fact, while
many co-opted and patronized elites enjoyed the fruits of exploitative development, many peasants,
workers, and migrant workers at the bottom of the social strata still suffer from its negative
externalities and understandably protest (Chen, 2009; Dickson, 2003; O’Brien and Li, 2006; Pei,
2006; Zweig, 2000); as we find many similar cases in the literature such as ‘weapons of the weak’
(Scott, 1985), ‘poor people’s movement’ (Piven and Cloward, 1977), and others (McAdam et al.,
2001). The gravely unfair reality is clearly revealed by serious corruption, which allegedly occupies
more than 15 percent of national GDP (Pei and Hu, 2007), as well as ever-growing inequality, with
the Gini-coefficient having increased to 0.5 in the 2000s;1 both are among the highest in the world.
In this vein, Sidney Tarrow, a leading scholar of contentious politics, points out, ‘[C]hina’s panoply
of contentious politics is expanding in step with its booming economic growth’ (2008: 2).
For an empirical test of the above propositions, this paper makes use of petition activism.
Without semi-competitive elections, which most authoritarian regimes hold (Brownlee, 2007;
Lust-Okar, 2005; Magaloni, 2006) with the exception of the CCP regime, the disgruntled masses
participate via petition activism. In contemporary China, ‘petition’ or ‘Xinfang’ refers to citizens’
political participatory activities, such as sending letters and paying visits to designated government
institutions, in order to address their economic and political needs along with policy suggestions
(Cai, 2004; CMLVA, 2000: 214; Minzner, 2006; Shi, 1997).2 This form of participation has been
institutionalized and legally protected by this authoritarian regime. An increasingly large number
of officials - estimated at more than one million - have been working for this participatory
institution. (CMLVA, 2000).
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