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‘Constructing a New Socialist Countryside’ and Beyond: An Analytical Framework for Studying Policy Implementation and Political Stability in Contemporary China

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Abstract

This article proposes a two-dimensional analytical framework to investigate the impact of local policy implementation on political system stability and legitimacy in China. It combines David Easton’s political systems theory with policy analysis and a variant of actor-centered institutionalism known as “strategic group analysis”. In the second part of the article, this framework is applied to a case study on local implementation of the official “constructing a new socialist countryside” policy in Qingyuan County, Zhejiang Province.

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Notes

  1. Although the incidence of social protest has been increasing in China during recent years, it still holds true, as Liz Perry and Marc Selden noted some time ago, that “for all the popular anguish and the variety and depth of contemporary protest, to date no significant organizational focus, whether enshrined in a political party or social movement, has emerged at the national, regional or even local level to challenge Communist Party leadership” ([57]: 16).

  2. The case study is part of a broader research project led by Gunter Schubert and Thomas Heberer (University of Duisburg-Essen) that analyzes local policy implementation and the political autonomy of county and township cadres in six rural counties, each located in one of the following provinces: Shaanxi, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Shandong, Sichuan, and Guizhou. In this article, we present the case of Qingyuan County, Zhejiang province. In 2008 and 2009, we conducted some 25 interviews with government and party officials at the county, township and village levels (most of whom were interviewed twice), and also spoke with a number of peasants. There will be a new round of fieldwork in Qingyuan in September 2010; for more detailed information on Qingyuan county, see the appendix.

  3. Other systems belonging to this environment are, for instance, the economic, cultural, and ecological systems (the ‘intra-societal environment’), as well as the international political, economic, and social systems (‘the extra-societal environment’), see p. 23 in Easton [21].

  4. According to Easton, the feedback loop “consists of the production of outputs by the authorities, a response to these on the part of the members of society, the communication of information about this response to the authorities and finally, possible succeeding actions on the part of the authorities. By this means, a new round of outputs, response, information feedback and reaction on the part of the authorities is set in motion and is part of a continuous, never-ending flow” ([21]: 28–29).

  5. David Easton’s modeling of the political system has often been criticized as theoretically tautological (and even apologetic), because any system may be called stable and legitimate, that is, persistent, as long as it continues to operate (see e.g. Bang [4] for a review of this critique). However, we concentrate on the empirical application of the Eastonian model by linking it to policy analysis and testing it against the consequences of local policy implementation. Our interest in the model is thus foremost pragmatic.

  6. The suggestion that the Chinese political system is stable because it enjoys sufficient degrees of legitimacy is confirmed by much of the recent public opinion literature. See e.g. surveys of the Asian Barometer Project [3]; the World Values Survey [93]; the Pew Global Attitudes Project [59]; or studies featuring opinion polls or other surveys such as Chen [13]; Chen et al. [15]; Gilley [28]; Shi [72]; Tang [79]; Shi and Lou [73]; Walder [87]; some contributions in White [90]; Zhong [109]. For those further studies pointing at the success of China’s central government in adopting relevant policies and allowing for their adaptation to local demands during the implementation process, see e.g. Naughton and Yang [55].

  7. According to Easton, specific support “is directed towards the political authorities and authoritative institutions. It assumes that members have sufficient political awareness to be able to associate satisfaction and dissatisfaction with the perceived behaviour of these authorities, whether the behaviour is in the form of identifiable actions or some attributed general performance” ([22]: 439).

  8. We are aware that this point is contested. As one of our Chinese research assistants remarked, on one occasion, as we were discussing the future of China, system persistence cannot be connected to regime legitimacy in China, because most of the Chinese people, particularly younger generations, are just too disillusioned with the Communist Party and simply go along with its policies and actions, trying to make the best of things. If this is true, the acceptance or toleration of outputs would be dictated by pragmatism or indifference, not by moral consent. Nevertheless, there is no survey data available to further qualify these assumptions.

  9. The belief in legitimacy is one component of diffuse support in Easton’s model (the other being trust) and derives “from the conviction on the part of the member that it is right and proper for him to accept and obey the authorities and to abide by the requirements of the regime. It reflects the fact that in some vague or explicit way he sees these objects as conforming to his own moral principles, his own sense of what is right and proper in the political sphere” ([21]: 278). We are not specifically concerned with ‘trust’ in this article which, to our understanding, has not been convincingly clarified with respect to its conceptual relation to legitimacy in Easton’s major works.

  10. “Political authority is legitimate, we can say, to the extent that 1) it is acquired and exercised according to established rules (legality); 2) the rules are justifiable according to socially accepted beliefs about (a) the rightful source of authority, and (b) the proper ends and standards of government (normative justifiability); 3) positions of authority are confirmed by express consent or affirmation of appropriate subordinates, and by recognition from other legitimate authorities (legitimation)” ([7]: 110).

  11. At the same time, as Beetham argues, “actions can confer legitimacy without being based upon any ‘belief in legitimacy’. (...) Consent [can] be expressed entirely out of considerations of self-interest. It is the actions, involving implicit or explicit commitments that create a normative relationship, and reciprocal obligations, not any prior ‘belief in legitimacy’” ([5]: 42).

  12. It is important to note that for Beetham, overt or expressed consent such as electoral participation must be voluntary and visible, as “the view that people consent to power if they are not openly protesting against it is (...) quite inadequate” ([6]: 91).

  13. As a matter of fact, Easton’s model has strongly influenced policy analysis in the field of political science since the 1970s.

  14. Other authors identify fewer or more phases. See, for example, Jann and Wegrich [40]; Hill [37]: 18–27.

  15. Bounded rationality (or rationalism) as understood in this context pertains to the new institutionalism in the social sciences [58], which investigates the inter-relationship between agency and institutions (for China see Lieberthal [44]; Tsai [83–85]) and also looks at feedback processes to analyze institutional stability and change ([60, 80]).

  16. Strategic groups as an analytical tool for exploring societal change and class formation processes have been an important focus of the ‘Bielefeld school’ of development sociology since the 1970s, producing much research on Southeast Asia and South Asia. The concept was later adapted to political science research on democratic transitions and finally applied by the China studies field to highlight the rise of private entrepreneurs in China’s market transformation; see, for example, Evers and Schiel [25]; Schubert et al. [70]; Heberer [33].

  17. Although peasants, migrants, private entrepreneurs, or social activists are also potential strategic groups, in our research, they paled in significance when compared to local cadres with regard to local policy implementation. However, this is an empirical issue that must be answered in relation to the specific policy investigated and the particular circumstances present in a locality. For the same reason, we did not integrated village cadres as a strategic group, as they lacked the power and influence to have a significant impact on policy implementation at our field sites.

  18. See among many others e.g. Chung [18]; Donaldson [20]; Fan et al. [26]; Guo [32]; Landry [42]; Smith [75]; Tsai [86]; Wu [98].

  19. This was also the topic in interviews with the vice party secretary of Qingyuan County on September 17, 2009 and with the mayors of two townships in Qingyuan County in September 2008 and 2009.

  20. Interview with members of the Lishui City Department of Rural Work, September 18, 2009.

  21. For a detailed description of local XNCJS policy formulation, implementation and, in particular, XNCJS project application procedure and funding, see for example, Ahlers and Schubert [1]; Li [43]; Su [77].

  22. Interview with the head of the Reform and Development Bureau, September 13, 2009.

  23. As the director of Qingyuan’s Reform and Development Bureau (fagaiju) explained, investments in the development of the countryside (zhinong) have increased to almost 90% of the county budget in 2009 (Interview on September 13, 2009). Other sources stated that XNCJS-related investments doubled from year to year, with the total share of higher-level transfers increasing around 15% annually. The budget of the XNCJS leading small group was CNY 50,000,000 in 2006 and 2007, of which the county itself allocated about CNY 20,000,000.

  24. This point has also been made by Thøgersen: “(...) The party secretary emphasized that only villages with well-connected leaders got money for projects” ([81]: 27).

  25. C.f. interviews with the party secretary of township A, September 19, 2008; and the government head of township B, September 23, 2008.

  26. The extent to which villagers actually participated in XNCJS-related policy formulation, even in the restricted sense mentioned, remained unclear to us; see also Ye [101].

  27. This increase may be partly due to the out-migration of workers and earnings in the non-agricultural sector. However, the encouragement of migration and the move toward wage labor is specifically integrated in Qingyuan’s XNCJS planning and thus does not necessarily diminish the success of the policy.

  28. Interviews with representatives of the Lishui City Department of Rural Works, September 18, 2009.

  29. Moreover, there is a regular horizontal and vertical evaluation of individual cadres with and without bianzhi and of the group of leading cadres (lingdao banzi: ‘political cadres’) at each level. Bianzhi usually refers to a certain number of official (or authorized) personnel within a unit, office, or organization and can be translated as “establishment” or “established posts”. To be a bianzhi cadre means to belong to a privileged hierarchy, enjoying special salary and allowance benefits and being entitled to move up to leading posts in the government or party apparatus. The core cadres of a certain administrative unit, such as a county government, form the lingdao banzi of that unit (see, for example, [9, 10: 79–82; 12, 41]). The lingdao banzi overlaps with the core of the stategic group of county and township cadres, but they are not identical.

  30. For each indicator there are fixed target values. The values shown here were collected from an evaluation sheet that Lishui City used to evaluate Qingyuan County’s XNCJS work; see Lishui City XNJCS Office [47].

  31. There is good reason to question the need of the county level to close ranks against the city or provincial authorities, as upper-level inspection tours and evaluation procedures are often communicated in advance to ensure that they go smoothly and to prevent any damage to political careers or reputations in the process. Our interviewees insisted, however, that evaluation is carried out “scientifically” and that no unofficial deals are made behind the scenes.

  32. Interview with the director of the Evaluation Bureau of Qingyuan County, September 12, 2009. See also Qingyuan County Evaluation Bureau [64].

  33. Interview, September 23, 2008. This rather flexible cooperation (or collusion) is a common feature and has been discovered and discussed by other scholars; see, for example, Zhou [110] or Zhao [107].

  34. The notion of “deep structure” to characterise the basic mode of operation of the Chinese political system, which still is hierarchical, was first used by Sebastian Heilmann and has been adopted in the present context.

  35. We asked peasants if they understood what XNJS meant, what it meant for them, what kind of measures had been implemented in their villages unter this heading, and what they thought about them. Our respondents clearly identified the new cooperative medical insurance system (hezuo yiliao) and the provision of basic allowances for the needy (wubao, dibao), in addition to road construction, as the most welcome government initiatives. However, we did not systematically interview villagers on these issues and thus only report our impressions.

  36. So far, we have not received the impression that villager participation via village assemblies or villager representative assemblies is very significant for XNCJS policy-making and implementation in Qingyuan, though we were told that each XNCJS project requires the consent of a majority of eligible voters in a process of democratic deliberation and decision-making. It seemed to us that mobilization by township cadres weighed stronger than bottom-up participation by peasants.

  37. For corresponding survey methods, see e.g. Chen and Zhong [14]; Chen [13]; Zhong [109].

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Acknowledgements

We like to thank Björn Alpermann, Christian Göbel, Thomas Heberer and René Trappel for their comments on earlier drafts of this article, and three anonymous reviewers.

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  1. Department of Chinese and Korean Studies, Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies, Eberhard Karls University Tuebingen, Wilhelmstrasse 133, 72074, Tuebingen, Germany

    Gunter Schubert & Anna L. Ahlers

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Appendix

Appendix

Qingyuan is the southernmost county of Zhejiang Province bordering Fujian and lies within the jurisdiction of the prefecture-level city of Lishui. It has a population of approximately 202,400 inhabitants, residing in the twenty townships and 345 villages under its administration. In 2009, the average annual per capita income amounted to CNY 5,278, whereas the national average for the same year was CNY 5,153 and CNY 10,007 for Zhejiang according to official figures. In 2009, Qingyuan’s total GDP was CNY 2,595 billion and per capita GDP of CNY 15,240, considerably less than the average per capita GDP of CNY 44,335 in Zhejiang Province. This is largely due to the county’s relative remoteness and still underdeveloped infrastructure. 53,000 people are employed in the agricultural sector and almost 90% of Qingyuan’s population hold a rural household registration. The main agricultural products are mushrooms, bamboo, rice, and mountain vegetables, as well as tea and tobacco on a smaller scale. The “shitake” or “fragrant mushroom” (xianggu) industry is the most important economic factor in the county; these mushrooms supply the Chinese market and are also exported on a large scale. Another important sector is the extensive bamboo growing and processing industry, which has led to Qingyuan’s becoming the largest production base for chopsticks in China. Lacking big industries, Qingyuan’s ecological environment has remained largely clean and intact, which resulted in Qingyuan being awarded several times the status of “China’s No. 1 eco-environment county” (zhongguo shengtai huan**g diyixian) in 2004 and “national ecological emulation county” (guojia shengtai shifanqu) in 2005. Qingyuan is also a popular destination for weekend tourists because of its (relatively) untouched nature and its historic “corridor bridges” (langqiao). Policy-making in Qingyuan is strongly conditioned by a specific feature of the administrative hierarchy in Zhejiang Province called “the province administers the county” (sheng guan xian), which affects the macro-level funding process and the domain of policy formulation and implementation. It places the county under the direct financial supervision of the provincial government, minimizing the city’s authority over the county level. This setup is supposed to reduce transaction costs and encourage county-level development (see, for example, [45, 48]).

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Schubert, G., Ahlers, A.L. ‘Constructing a New Socialist Countryside’ and Beyond: An Analytical Framework for Studying Policy Implementation and Political Stability in Contemporary China. J OF CHIN POLIT SCI 16, 19–46 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11366-010-9139-6

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