Village Elections and Their Impact

The State of the Field and the Rationale of This Study

Since elections in China’s villages were officially launched as an experiment in 1987, and especially since the promulgation of the Organic Law of Village Committees in 1998, village elections have drawn much attention and debate as to their character, impact, and implications. After twenty some years into elections, it is appropriate to pause and reflect on what we know about the subject and where to go next. In 2009, a group of political scientists who had done much work in the field organized a forum in the Journal of Contemporary China to do just that. Kevin O’Brien, one of the best-known in the field, and Rongbin Han contributed a central piece assessing the status of China’s elections and the state of the field. O’Brien and Han state, “Election procedures in rural China have improved greatly over the last 20 years and a good number of reasonably free and fair elections have been held” (O’Brien and Han, 2009: 359). Based on statistics on these elections presented by many Chinese and international scholars and observers, they conclude, “By many indicators, the future of grassroots democracy in China is bright, much as Tianjian Shi foresaw some years ago” (360). On the other hand, they see a serious lag in China’s rural democratization in that “changes in the ‘exercise of power’ [governance] have not kept up with changes in the ‘access to power’ [elections]” (359).

Viewing “the mountain of evidence” in the literature, O’Brien and Han point out a general bias in research focusing on the procedural study of elections without due attention to governance. This approach “leads analysts to over emphasize form at the expense of content” (O’Brien and Han, 2009: 360). For future study, they propose to shift the focus from “access to power” to “exercise of power.” To address the research bias and to explain the gap between much improved elections and little improved governance, O’Brien and Han examine the power configuration in grassroots politics that puts constraints on village committees including the township, the Party branch, and social forces from clans and religious organizations to criminal elements. They come to the conclusion that “the quality of democracy in much of the countryside remains stubbornly low, mainly because village committees, once an election is over, are situated in a sociopolitical environment that has changed surprisingly little” (376).

The problem with their analysis of institutional constraints is its assumption that popularly elected village committees are an agent for democratic change, and only various formal institutions and informal forces around them prevent them from achieving their potential. In fact, for various reasons, elected officials in many villages do not try to govern democratically. In their study of the effect of the incentive structure—mainly involving salaries—on village officials, James Kung, Yongshun Cai, and Xiulin Sun conclude, “when village cadres face competing demands from their families, the village community and the state, they tend to give priority to state tasks first, . . . and they put community needs last” (Kung, Cai, and Sun, 2009: 61). In this article, I will show that there are even more factors, personal and structural, that constrain officials from governing democratically or effectively. Only by broadening the focus beyond the power structure in which the village committee is embedded can we uncover the actual dynamics of village politics, for example, the role of factionalism, which, I will show below, cuts across formal institutions and informal groups. When the village director and the Party secretary are of the same faction, the institutional divide seems to be meaningless, providing no checks and balances. O’Brien and Han recognize the limits of their institutional approach to the study of village governance and suggest a set of specific questions for further study, including “how, when and where elections have changed the relationship between cadres and voters”; “whether elections deter power holders from seeking personal gain above all else”; and whether “limited changes in governance after several rounds of elections [are] a cause of increasing voter apathy” (O’Brien and Han, 2009: 377–78). ¹ These questions overlap with some of those addressed in this article and O’Brien and Han’s call for a new approach to research describes what I am doing here.

With the one possible exception, other scholars in the forum more or less agree with O’Brien and Han’s assessment of the status of China’s village elections and their proposal to shift the focus to post-election governance. ² However, Melanie Manion, John James Kennedy, and Bjorn Alpermann all seem to disagree with O’Brien and Han’s assessment that a large gap exists between (much improved) elections and (little improved) governance. Emphasizing a positive correlation between the quality of village elections and of governance, they see more positive changes in rural democratization beyond improved elections. ³ These three scholars represent the views of what I call “the empowerment school”—the majority in the field—while O’Brien and Han may be seen as two who are parting way with the school but have not yet joined the “disempowerment school,” definitely the minority in the field. ⁴

In their discussion of research methodology, O’Brien and Han implicitly and Melanie Manion and Gunter Schubert directly call for more case studies. Schubert, in particular, proposes “a new approach” closer to the one used by anthropologists (Schubert, 2009: 387–88). To address the bias of over-emphasis on procedure rather than content and the imbalance in the field—dominated as it is by political scientists—there is a need for more fine-grained case studies. While anthropological studies of village elections by Chinese scholars are numerous, they are few and far between in the English literature. Zongze Hu published an ethnographic study of a North China village and I published one on a village on the outskirts of Beijing. ⁵ Unlike the macro studies that dominate the field, what a case study can do is to help us discern the causal mechanisms at work, thus enhancing our knowledge about how and why elections work or fail to work. For example, Hu’s article analyzes how and why the majority of villagers reacted negatively to a good democratic election and supervision, while mine illustrates how and why direct elections led to factional politics and continued popular discontent after a change of leadership.

What is the rationale, then, for another study of the same village? In my previous article, I conclude that significant progress had been made in the village’s elections after a crisis caused by vote buying during the 2004 election. Compared with the old leadership, the first elected village committee (2004–2007) had shown improved governance to the extent that its members were not accused of financial corruption. However, popular discontent persisted because the new leadership had failed to address the accumulated and continuing problems of encroachment on the village’s property. This conclusion about (improved) elections and (little improved) governance fits more or less with O’Brien and Han’s recent assessment that village elections have much improved while governance lags behind.

Since 2007, important changes have taken place in the village I have studied, including a new round of elections. The most notable change has been one for the worse: the rise of official financial corruption and of village toughs, some of whom had turned into predatory entrepreneurs. Financial misconduct by village cadres has been increasingly committed in collaboration with predatory entrepreneurs and village toughs. This has deepened popular discontent and aroused sporadic public resistance. What is more, the 2010 election saw rampant vote buying that sent two predatory entrepreneurs to the village committee, one being the new village director. These changes have given me a new vantage point today—one with a broadened perspective and a clear view of the problems troubling the village. Reviewing my interview notes gathered since 2005, the problem of village toughs and predatory entrepreneurs jumps to the fore: almost everyone, from village cadres to ordinary villagers, complained about hunhun’r (toughs, rascals), who have illegally monopolized the business of the two village sand farms, and predatory entrepreneurs, who have refused to make their contract payments since 2003 or earlier. However, in my earlier study, since villagers’ major complaints and the first two direct elections clearly were aimed at the old leadership, I regarded the problem of village toughs mainly as a byproduct of the village’s poor governance. After learning about the collaboration between village cadres and village toughs in recent years, especially about how two predatory entrepreneurs, formerly village toughs, had won the 2010 election, I realized that the rise of village toughs had much more serious implications and consequences than I had first recognized. Reading Chen Baifeng’s study (2008) of the rise of village toughs in rural China only confirmed my impression that they have become a powerful force in the village and have done more damage than corrupt village officials. The dramatic downturn in the quality of governance and elections since 2007 and the changing attitude of villagers toward elections and the Communist leadership called for another study as well as a reconsideration of my previous conclusions.

Background of the Village and Methodology of the Research

The village (I call it West Village) under study is located 58 kilometers northeast of Beijing. It is a large agrarian village with multi-surname groups and a population of over 2,200. The village has 4,300 mu of land—less than half is good for farming; most is sandy and stony. For most households, farming is for family consumption rather than the market. In the past two decades, two collective enterprises and two private businesses of some scale failed, leaving villagers looking for jobs outside the village. Several hundred able-bodied men and some women work in construction or in the service industry in the nearby township, the county seat, or Beijing. According to villagers, the village had been in good shape from the collectivization period through to the reform era of the late 1990s. Since then, village cadres had increasingly worked for themselves. The social, economic, and political order of the village has kept deteriorating due to official corruption, poor governance, and the rise of unruly villagers, village toughs, and predatory entrepreneurs. Thus, West Village can be categorized as a badly governed and dysfunctional village and this study can serve as a test case on whether the introduction of democratic elections has or has not helped improve its conditions.

My study covers four direct elections from 2001 to 2010, which villagers consider “free” (hai xuan). To obtain a comprehensive picture of changes and continuities, I have adopted a time series approach. To achieve a balanced view, I have conducted multiple interviews of both members of the governing and non-governing elite of different factions and ordinary villagers. Based on these in-depth and, for some, repeated interviews conducted over the last five years and participant observation, I reconstruct below a narrative to illustrate the changing political dynamics in the village after direct elections were introduced. To avoid repetition with my previous article, the 2001 to 2007 elections will be discussed only briefly to illustrate the rise of factional politics and to provide the necessary background for what happened afterward. ⁶ Then I discuss and analyze the impact of direct elections in village politics including the issues of elections and governance, elite and popular participation, the recent rise of village toughs and predatory entrepreneurs, and the main problems and contradictions in the village. In the conclusion, I summarize my findings and try to explain why democratic elections have failed to improve governance in West Village, and the necessity for forceful state intervention in curbing the problem of village toughs. ⁷

Major Findings

Direct elections (2001) empowered villagers, but their candidate reached a compromise with the old village director. In the second round of elections (2004), the same candidate challenged and defeated the incumbent. In less than a year, the old Party secretary was forced to resign by a few opposition activists. Thus, the first two direct elections resulted in a radical change in the village leadership. However, the new leaders failed to address the accumulated problems left over by the old leadership, and failed to govern with competency, transparency, and accountability. As villagers’ expectations for change failed to materialize, their political enthusiasm was soon dampened and replaced by disillusionment, apathy, and cynicism.

In contrast, interest in political participation among the political and economic elite remained high because of high returns to holding office. Direct elections provided opportunities for an enlarged group of elite to compete for office. This elite included both members of the old-style political elite (most had served in the village government) and a newly emerged economic elite. Competing for power gave rise to strong factionalism and opposition activism, which helped to improve the quality of the first two competitive elections (2004, 2007) and provide a degree of checks and balances. On the other hand, factionalism undermined the effectiveness of the first new leadership (2004–2007), largely because neither the old nor the new Party secretaries cooperated with the first popularly elected village director, but it boosted financial corruption of the second (2007–2010), because the second popularly elected village director and the Party secretary were of the same faction.

With the decline of meaningful popular participation, elections and governance in West Village were largely reduced to elite politics. Disillusioned with the elected officials and hoping for a change, most villagers accepted or resigned themselves to vote buying in the most recent election and helped send two predatory entrepreneurs into office, thus putting both the village’s property and democratization in jeopardy. Through the power of money and threat of violence, the two predatory entrepreneurs easily defeated their opponents and overcame the logic of factional politics, which had helped improve the quality of the 2004 and 2007 elections.

The core problem that aroused the most popular discontent under the old leadership—encroachment on and unfair distribution of collective property—continued under the new leadership, and in fact has worsened in recent years. It defined the main contradiction in the village today: economic justice, with villagers on one side, and ineffective or corrupt officials, and predatory entrepreneurs and village toughs, on the other. This main contradiction in its various forms can be found in many villages because the ongoing economic transition and political reform in rural China have been carried out in an environment of social, political, and moral deterioration and unsupported by rule of law.

This article challenges the basis for O’Brien and Han’s assessment about the supposedly much improved quality of village elections and for various theories of empowerment, the dominant view in the field, by highlighting the difference between formal and meaningful participation, the fluidity of direct elections in their early stage, and the serious threat posed by village toughs and predatory entrepreneurs. It also shows the risk of introducing democratic elections in villages with the problem of toughs and predatory entrepreneurs: such forces can take advantage of democratic elections and grab control of public power and village property under the color of authority.

Major Players and Factions

In the past four elections in West Village several major players emerged. I list them, and the factions they formed, in the order they appeared. First, the old village director and the old Party secretary, who constituted the old entrenched leadership (the old cadre faction). Beneficiaries of Deng Xiaoping’s policy of “selecting younger and capable cadres,” they were recruited into the village leadership in the late 1980s. In the 2004 election and its aftermath, these two were removed from office one after the other. The old village director, however, managed to stay on in the Party branch committee, where he remains today. Second, RW, a member of the old village committee, was the first popularly elected village director, serving from 2004 to 2007. He did not seek reelection as the village director mainly because he could not effectively deal with unruly villagers, village toughs, and predatory entrepreneurs. With a solid popular base, he has been repeatedly reelected to the village committee. Third, XM, a predatory entrepreneur (who has not made the payments due under his contract with the village since 2003). As a close friend, he supported RW in the 2004 election. RW and XM formed the first opposition faction to challenge the power establishment (the old cadre faction). XM himself competed for the office of village director in 2007, winning the primary, but was defeated in the formal election by a coalition of the old and new Party secretaries, the old village director, and the would-be new village director. The four men introduced above were born from 1955 to 1959. The old village director and RW were middle school graduates while the old Party secretary and XM were high school graduates. Except for RW, all three had served in the navy after school—a rare and privileged career opportunity during the Cultural Revolution. Fourth, five Party members, who formed an opposition group within the Party branch and were mainly responsible for the downfall of the old Party secretary. But they were unsuccessful in making one of their own the new Party secretary. Fifth, CF, born in the mid-1960s, an entrepreneur and protégé of the old Party secretary. He became the interim Party secretary in 2005 when the old Party secretary was forced to resign and then the permanent Party secretary through Party members’ elections in 2007 and 2010. He and the old village director formed a new faction (the reconstituted old cadre faction), which has dominated the Party branch ever since and the village committee from 2007 to 2010. Sixth, RL, born in the late 1940s, a thoughtful and articulate man with clear ideas about the village’s problems and strategies to deal with them. A strong supporter of RW in the 2004 election, he became one of his most vocal critics during his term. RL and a retired Party secretary who had served in the 1970s and 1980s form the fifth faction. RL competed unsuccessfully for the office of village director in the 2007 and 2010 primaries. Seventh, SL, born in the mid-1960s, served in various village posts before the elections and competed unsuccessfully for a seat on the village committee since the 2001 election. SL became the second elected village director in the 2007 election with the support of the alliance of the reconstituted old cadre faction. He lost to Tiger, a predatory entrepreneur, in the 2010 election. Eighth, Tiger, born in the late 1960s, a village strongman and the wealthiest predatory entrepreneur, who got rich through illegal or semi-legal business. Through vote buying and the threat of violence, Tiger became the third elected village director in 2010. Dog, his uncle, a village tough and predatory entrepreneur, got elected to the village committee. The two predatory entrepreneurs form the sixth faction, which now dominates the village committee.

The 2001 and 2004 Elections

Direct elections came to West Village in 2001. The popular desire for change was clearly indicated in RW’s lead of 200 votes, without even campaigning, over the old village director in the primary. RW, a member of the village committee, was an outsider to the inner power circle made up of the old Party secretary and the old village director. He enjoyed a good reputation among villagers for being clean, honest, and without airs, while the old village director was considered by many as rude and “a gun for the old Party secretary.”

Uncertain about what the first direct election would entail, RW accepted mediation by XM, a predatory entrepreneur and a mutual friend of both candidates: if, according to a gentlemen’s agreement, he would not compete this time, the incumbent promised not to compete against him in the next election. Thus the political status quo was maintained through behind-the-scenes politicking between the elites involved. However, popular discontent with the old leadership and the desire for change were expressed loudly and clearly in RW’s significant lead in the primary.

When the time for the 2004 election came, the old village director refused to honor the gentlemen’s agreement. RW easily built a broad coalition of elite and non-elite supporters to challenge the incumbent. What had transpired in the first competitive election reminded villagers of both sides of the Cultural Revolution and some indeed used Cultural Revolution vocabulary to describe the struggle as between “the rebels” (zaofan pai) and “the old cadres” (lao ganbu).

In the primary, RW led the old village director by about 150 votes. Desperate to win in the formal election, the old village director and his followers resorted to vote buying with cash (ten yuan for each vote), dinners, and other illegal activities. In the formal election, the old village director got 60 some more votes than RW. RW’s supporters would not accept this result. They put up big character posters accusing the old village director of election fraud. Furthermore, they demanded an investigation of questionable financial deals in recent years. That was directly aimed at the Party secretary, who had been in control of the village’s finances. On the day of the run-off election, a group of RW’s supporters blocked the entrance to the polling station, making voting impossible.

The crisis alarmed the township leadership, which sent a work team to the village. When neither persuasion nor intimidation worked, it had to offer the opposition an acceptable compromise. A new election was held and there was yet another attempt at disrupting the election by the incumbent—but this time it was aborted. RW finally beat the incumbent by a small margin and became the village’s first popularly elected chief.

Four months behind schedule, the 2004 election finally concluded, but the election-triggered political crisis was far from over. The old village director refused to recognize the election results and continued to come to his office as before. The old Party secretary, on the other hand, had not shown up at his office or in the village for months (he lived in the county seat), for fear of confronting opposition activists who demanded to audit the village’s account under his control. Every villager I interviewed in 2005 mentioned the village’s chicken farm, a failed joint venture. As the outside partner breached the contract in 1999, he was supposed to compensate the village as much as 80,000 yuan annually. But the case had not been resolved after six years and villagers suspected that there was a secret deal between the outside partner and the old Party secretary. The protestors also wanted to investigate the Party secretary’s and the old village director’s private ventures—selling sand belonging to the village without proper compensation. Although they had stopped doing this under the pressure of villagers and the township leadership, the illegal business was taken over by several village toughs and predatory entrepreneurs.

After the first competitive election, which removed the old village director, a group of five Party member activists emerged (as the third faction) out of the opposition coalition formed in the 2004 election, aiming to remove the Party secretary. Through persistent petitioning, they finally succeeded in getting the township’s and county’s attention. It was their charge that the Party secretary had been negligent—the village Party branch had held no meetings for ten months after the election—that caught the attention of the leadership of upper levels rather than the allegations of financial corruption. The group of five maneuvered, without success, to get one of their own appointed the interim Party secretary. Nor were they successful in the election of the Party branch committee in 2007. According to the procedural rules, the interim position should have gone to RW, as the only member of the Party branch committee untainted by the charge of financial misconduct. However, the township helped CF, an entrepreneur and a protégé of the old Party secretary, to get the job.

CF had been an owner of small construction team and a friend of the old Party secretary, who had once contracted to him a profitable job—worth several hundred thousand yuan—constructing an irrigation system for the village. When the old Party secretary resigned, he recommended CF as his successor and another older, retired Party secretary who had served from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s also recommended CF to the township leadership. All three were of the same clan and the retired Party secretary declared, “The Party secretary position should never go to someone outside of the clan.” Before the 2007 election, the interim Party secretary had won over the majority of Party members: under his charge, a small park with exercise facilities was built (although later on villagers found a big gap between the budget for the project and what was actually spent). He succeeded in persuading the majority of the Party members and villagers’ representatives to accept a compromise solution for the case of the failed chicken farm. In the 2007 election of the Party branch committee, CF gained full legitimacy by receiving the most votes of the Party members.

In contrast, the support among villagers for RW, the new village director, was eroded because of his failure to display strong and capable leadership in dealing with unruly villagers and village toughs. Villagers mentioned several incidents to show that RW was not a good guardian of the village property. Once, he was unable to make a few unruly villagers and village toughs pay for the trees they had illegally cut down. In addition, he failed to insist that the recovered trees be sold to the highest bidder, thus costing the village tens of thousands of yuan. On another occasion he was unable to collect payment from a few villagers who had used the collective mechanical plowing service. Some villagers’ criticism was probably right that RW was a good man but not a good leader. In the election for the Party branch committee, in which the old Party secretary still had a strong power base, RW did not get reelected while his deadly enemy—the old village director—did. When the 2007 election for the village committee came, RW decided not to seek reelection as village director. The major reasons behind his decision seemed to be three: one, he could not deal with unruly villagers and toughs; two, he could not get the cooperation of the Party leaderhip; and, three, his ally XM would compete for the office in this election.

The 2007 Election: The Reconstituted Old Cadre Faction Prevails

Two contenders came forth to seek the office of village director in the 2007 election. The first one was RL. From the same surname group and, as mentioned, a strong supporter of RW in the 2004 election, RL soon became a vocal critic of the new village chief for being “weak and incompetent.” Of all the village officials and candidates I have known, RL is the most thoughtful and has a comprehensive plan to rejuvenate the village’s economy, although its feasibility can be questioned. Some villagers suspect RL’s goal is to restore collective farming, even if it is on a voluntary basis. He also had ideas on how to address accumulated problems of public concern—the illegal exploitation of the village sand farms, the enforcement of contract terms, and the reallocation of land. But with the reputation of being a mere talker, RL did not enjoy wide popular support. This was shown in his being defeated twice, in the 2007 and 2010 primaries.

The second contender was XM, RW’s ally since the 2004 election. XM made his first fortune—sometimes via illegal means—in the transportation business in the 1980s. ⁸ He claimed that in the 1990s he had been the wealthiest man in the village. Since the beginning of the new century, XM’s food and printing businesses had closed down because of keener competition and poor management. His search for a new business partner has been unsuccessful. That seemed to be the major reason for him to run for office. Besides a good salary and other benefits, the political power that came with the job could help provide him with business opportunities.

As far as the villagers were concerned, both candidates shared the same character flaw—arrogance. Comparing the two, however, XM had a few advantages in the eyes of villagers: he was over ten years younger; he had more outside connections (his father, now retired, used to be a section chief of the county police department); and he had more active, young campaigners. Unlike the previous elections, there seemed to be no clearly good or bad choices for villagers between the two candidates.

I observed the 2007 primary and part of the campaigning process. At least, the primary election, if not its campaigning, was free, fair, and competitive. ⁹ Besides three cadres and two security guards from the township to monitor the election, all the candidates were on site most of the time to keep an eye on the election process. As the memory of the 2004 election crisis was still fresh, the procedural rules were well observed this time. Two hours after the booths were closed, the votes were tallied with supporters of both candidates watching: of 1,800 eligible voters, about 1,200 voted. Of the two main candidates seeking the office of the village chief, XM got 444 votes or 37 percent of the votes; RL got 268 votes or 22 percent.

Shortly after the primary, a despondent RL revealed his intent to withdraw, despite the reconstituted old cadre faction’s offer of their full support in the formal election. On learning the news, SL, an opportunist who had joined XM in campaigning in the primary but lost his bid to be elected to the village committee, jumped at the opportunity. Under normal circumstances, SL would have had no chance. But the full support of the reconstituted old cadre faction made a difference. The two incumbents in the leadership—the new Party secretary and the old village director—had the most to lose if XM was elected. They went to the old Party secretary for help. Even though no longer in office (he found a job in the county’s economic development zone), the old Party secretary still had considerable political influence in the village. The three men decided to actively campaign for SL. In his early forties, SL had a small business—a meat stall in a market in the county seat. A man with political ambitions, he had run without success for a seat on the village committee since direct elections were introduced in 2001. Related to the old Party secretary by marriage and a member of the Party by virtue of the Party secretary’s help, the man could be easily won over to the reconstituted old cadre faction.

Apart from the effective maneuvers by the reconstituted old cadre faction, popular will was ultimately the decisive factor in the results of the 2007 election. The dramatic turnabout must be understood as a result of XM’s lack of popular support. Besides his proverbial arrogance, XM had been delinquent in paying the contract fee of 20,000 yuan annually for his factory compound for a number of years. Violations of this kind were widespread in the village: between 2001 and 2003, most villagers, imitating one another, had stopped paying contract fees. But the delinquency of ordinary villagers could not even compare with a dozen predatory entrepreneurs who either accumulated a dozen or several dozen mu of farm land, or rented a few village housing compounds, or controlled the cash cow that was the sand farms. By encroaching on the village’s property for tens or hundreds of thousands of yuan annually, they certainly warrant being be categorized as “predatory entrepreneurs.” Today, only one family in the village’s lower economic elite continues to pay its annual dues of 875 yuan. This tremendous loss of collective income was a priority issue that most villagers wanted their leaders to address. That XM was one of the most glaring problems in this area was well-known and his opponents exploited it fully to undermine his credibility as a potential leader. Villagers had good reason to doubt if XM had the political will or desire to deal with this problem. SL could at least give villagers a little hope for change.

Crying foul after the defeat, 30 to 40 of XM’s supporters went to the township and the county seat to protest. Without hard evidence, the election result was considered legal. (XM revealed that CF, the Party secretary, was summoned to the township and grilled for three days. Only intervention of a mutual friend helped settle the matter. I also heard later from sources other than XM’s faction that SL had resorted to small-scale vote buying.)

After the 2007 election, the village leadership, including the village committee and the Party branch committee, was increasingly dominated by the reconstituted old cadre faction including CF (the new Party secretary), the old village director and now a member of the Party branch, and SL, the new village director. RW, the first popularly elected village director, now reelected a member of the village committee, was further marginalized after his loss in the election of the Party branch committee earlier the same year.

Governance under the Reconstituted Old Cadre Faction (2007–2010)

With the benefit of a unified leadership, SL and CF still would not touch the thorny problem of the continued erosion and unfair distribution of village property. Like RW, their lack of political will to enforce regulations and contract terms was mainly out of fear of confronting strongmen like XM, Tiger, and the village toughs. It was also due to a lack of public pressure and support from villagers, who would complain in private but would not raise the issue on formal occasions. As much as the village cadres, villagers were afraid of crossing village toughs and strongmen. Unlike during RW’s term, village toughs and some predatory entrepreneurs became more aggressive because of the increased economic opportunities in the village. Under their harassment, villager leaders more often than not chose appeasement and even collaboration.

Besides abolishing the agricultural tax in 2006, the central government and, even more so, the Beijing municipal government, have increased investment in rural reconstruction (jianshe shehuizhuyi xin nongcun). In addition, the village hit the jackpot, so to speak: the municipal government began in 2009 to compensate it with the whopping sum of 1.84 million yuan annually for five years for the land the village had given up (about half of what it owned) to the neighboring migrant village relocated here for the construction of a reservoir in 1958. The money was earmarked for projects to enhance the village’s economic development and public services. Headed by the retired Party secretary, who had served from 1974 to 1982, and RL, ten Villagers’ Representatives and Party members wrote a letter to Premier Wen Jiabao early in 2009, appealing without success for distributing the compensation among the villagers. Sometime before this, there was a larger petition on which 97 percent of the villagers signed their names. CF, the Party branch secretary, and SL, the village director, were among the few who did not. However, the way they handled the public funds in the past two years strongly suggested financial corruption, which aroused increasing public discontent and even sporadic resistance.

The first incident took place in early 2008. When the municipal government funded a big-budget project to upgrade the village’s running-water system, the village director and the Party branch secretary contracted the project, during a meeting in the county seat, to a construction team without villagers’ knowledge. When information leaked that there was a trick (maoni) in the deal, ¹⁰ the same retired Party secretary, who led the petition to distribute equally among villagers the municipal government’s compensation to the village, along with a few other Party members, challenged the Party secretary at a meeting. Quoting the rule for village governance that village leaders must consult villagers or their representatives in making decisions on any project over 100,000 yuan, they insisted that the two village leaders cancel the contract. Under public pressure they ended up doing so, even at the risk of being sued by the construction team. (The materials and equipment of the construction team had already been moved to the village.) What they did afterward, however, was even more problematic. Quoting the old saying “fertile water should not flow into outsiders’ fields” (fei shui bu liu wairen tian), the two leaders managed to persuade the Party members and villagers’ representatives to sign a new contract with Tiger and Dog, two predatory entrepreneurs. The retired Party secretary fell silent after receiving a job as a supervisor for the project.

The financial misconduct by CF and SL continued in at least two other projects. One was the construction of a village archway. Instead of contracting it to an outside bidder at a lower price, they again contracted to Tiger, with a budget of 180,000 yuan. When finished, the total spent amounted to 210,000 yuan, but no official explanation for the overrun was given. The largest project, also the most outrageous one, and financed from the village’s own coffers, was the construction of an office and entertainment complex housing a movie theater and the village government in 2009. With an estimated cost of a million, the leadership obtained the approval from the Villagers’ Representatives Assembly and again contracted the project to Tiger and Dog, who again subcontracted it to outsiders and recruited other village toughs. When the construction was finished, however, the total spent amounted to three million. The predatory entrepreneurs, now creditors of the village, said that the increased cost was due to added facilities and amenities. A further demand by villagers that officials provide an itemization of spending was disregarded. Before the 2010 election for the Party branch committee, five old Party members (not the same five who were responsible for the downfall of the old Party chief) had reported the case through the internet to the Beijing municipal government’s anti-corruption agency with CF’s and their own names identified.

There were other incidents showing increased tension and conflict between villagers and cadres. In March 2008, CF, SL, and the old village director decided to sell the tractor and the combine belonging to the village because they could not find operators in the village. For fear of increased service cost, angry villagers locked the yard where the farm machines were parked to block the sale. The attempted sale did not materialize, but the tractor was later found destroyed by fire. Besides these incidents, it was common knowledge that the village director and the Party secretary frequently dined with Tiger and Dog. They were also known to gamble together, with a sum of tens of thousands changing hands overnight. For a village without a good economy, the village officials’ use of public money was reckless and extravagant. Like the old Party branch secretary, the new secretary hired a driver, with an annual salary of 30,000 yuan. His monthly cell phone bill once reached 1,200 yuan, while the cap for reimbursement set by the township was 150 yuan. Reception and entertainment expenses (zhaodai fei) (mainly for eating and drinking) of village officials for the month of April 2008 were over 90,000 yuan. The village’s spending on the 2010 election was over 100,000 yuan; the working dinner for the election committee members alone cost 2,700 yuan daily (three tables at 900 yuan each). Poor governance, financial corruption, and fiscal irresponsibility of this leadership made most villagers angry and cynical. The retired Party secretary described the sorry plight of the current village leaders to their face: “Nobody listens to you and nobody lends you a hand” (shuohua meiren ting; banshi meiren bang).

The 2010 Election: The Rise of Predatory Entrepreneurs

Rumors were circulating that Tiger would run for office in the 2010 election when I visited the village in 2008. Sometime before the 2010 election, Tiger paid a courtesy call to XM, asking if he would compete again. At this meeting, Tiger disclosed his desire to get rid of the incumbent and asked XM and RW for help. They agreed, and thus a new alliance was formed to challenge the reconstituted old cadre faction.

Although he never finished primary school, Tiger is street smart and has some business sense. In the 1990s, he made some money as a broker transporting cloth from Beijing to Wenzhou and selling it. However, his fortune had been made in recent years mainly through his illegal business involving the village sand farms. Unlike other predatory entrepreneurs, who engaged in the sand business completely illegally, Tiger had actually contracted a sand farm while the old Party secretary was in office; thus it seemed his use of collective property was at least more legitimate than the illegal business of others. In the past few years he was further enriched by contracting construction projects both within and outside the village. Being the wealthiest man in the village today, Tiger is also a strongman, commanding respect from village toughs, predatory entrepreneurs, and cadres alike. In the construction of the movie theater and the government office, however, the village director did not seem to have always accommodated him. This contributed to Tiger’s determination to replace the incumbent in the upcoming election.

Unlike other village toughs, Tiger seems to be free from a bad reputation and even to be admired by some. He is known as a kind of a Water Margin (Shuihuzhuan) figure: some say he only gives trouble to village cadres but never bothers villagers. Young men consider him “personally loyal and generous” (zhangyi, jiangyiqi), a quality highly regarded in Chinese popular culture. The example they gave was that whenever villagers asked him for some sand when building a house, Tiger would give it to them for free. Tiger has good connections with the highest township officials through his sister, who works in the township government as a cook and is known for both being attractive and promiscuous. When he drives to the township, Tiger is treated as a respectable entrepreneur. Whenever there is a crackdown on the illegal business of sand digging, he is informed ahead of time.

Tiger used both carrots and sticks in campaigning. Each household received 100 yuan before the primary and another hundred before the formal election. But to the active supporters of his main opponent, he played tough. Learning the lessons from XM’s defeat in the last election, Tiger’s followers gathered those who had campaigned for the incumbent last time and threatened to use force if they did so this time. Thus, the reconstituted old cadre faction, the most powerful in village politics, could not effectively function for fear of retribution. In the primary of the 2010 election, four candidates competed, with the incumbent getting about 400 votes and Tiger about 700. In the formal election, the incumbent’s votes dropped to about 200 while Tiger’s jumped to over 1,200.

Thus, Tiger won a landslide victory by using both cash and intimidation. The incumbent also used vote buying, but his financial resources simply were too limited. No doubt Tiger’s vote buying played a role in the outcome, even though we cannot be certain how much of a role. The same is true of his tactics of intimidation, which had dissuaded SL’s supporters from effectively campaigning for him. But the incumbent’s defeat was not a surprise. In the past three elections in which he ran, the incumbent, on his own, never got more than 300 votes out of the total of 1,200 or more. As village director, his bad temper and rough manner had upset a number of people and his suspected financial misconduct was even more alienating. Three years in office did not enhance his popular support. Comparing the two, many villagers considered Tiger to be a better alternative.

If it is uncertain how much of a role cash played in Tiger’s rise to power, it was crystal clear that money was everything for another predatory entrepreneur’s rise. Dog, Tiger’s uncle but a junior partner, was without any redeeming virtues in the eyes of villagers. Like his nephew, Dog never finished primary school. After serving in the army, he worked in a private debt collection agency and was said to have been awarded two apartments by the local government for relocating “nail households” (dingzi hu). After direct elections began, he began to go back to the village and talked about “getting a little land.” Dog is a village tough, pure and simple, with a rough manner and foul mouth; yet he was able to easily win the race for election to the village committee, beating a two-term incumbent with a decent reputation, by giving 50 yuan to each voter. In the primary, Dog got only 175 votes while the incumbent got about 500 votes. But in the formal election, vote buying got him 799 votes.

A few elite members of different factions were all very bitter about the rampant vote buying, if not with SL’s defeat, calling the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership and the system “rotten.” Unlike in the election of 2004, in which vote buying by the incumbent aroused popular protest, this time no one made a fuss about it in public or reported it to the upper levels. Fear of retribution was certainly a major reason. Also, the accusers had to provide hard evidence. After all, it would be useless since everyone knew that Tiger had good connections in the township and the county. In fact the township was fully aware of vote buying in most elections of its villages. In West Village, the township had three cadres and two security guards on site daily during the election period. Ironically, the township awarded a 50,000 yuan bonus to the village leadership for holding a smooth election. Even more ironically, the bonus was given to no one but Tiger, the perpetrator of the rampant vote buying. Instead of handing the money over to the village leadership, he gave it to five of his most hard-working campaigners for a holiday in the south. “If it’s not enough, I’ll cover the rest.” So much for Tiger’s “loyalty and generosity.”

The election changed the power balance in the village leadership, dividing it equally between the village committee controlled by Tiger and Dog with RW tagging along, while the Party branch committee was controlled by CF, the old village director, and a new person (who used to be CF’s driver). With his political ambition, financial strength, strong personality and personal connections in the township, Tiger predictably dominated the new leadership. In fact, he had already turned in his application for Party membership and finished a training session in the township in October 2010. CF was rightly worried about how long he could stay in office since Tiger’s next move was surely to be either to subdue the Party secretary or to replace him.

Old and New Problems and Contradictions in the Village

After three competitive elections and four changes of top officials including the change of the Party secretary and the three consecutive changes of the village director, the accumulated problems left by the old leadership before direct elections remained or continued to evolve under the new leadership. In my interviews, the problems repeatedly mentioned included: village cadres’ questionable business deals and spending; cadres’ failure to enforce rules and contract terms; village toughs’ and predatory entrepreneurs’ encroachment on the village property, in particular, the sand farms; delinquency in paying contract dues; and questionable construction deals with village officials. Villagers also wanted to reallocate land (most Chinese villages had done so in 1997 in line with government policy) and to develop the collective economy. These problems of public concern can be summarized as follows: first, village officials’ financial corruption and fiscal irresponsibility; second, village officials’ incompetency in maintaining a good social and economic order; third, village toughs’ and predatory entrepreneurs’ growing encroachment on collective property; and fourth, unfair accumulation of land since the first land redistribution in the early 1980s and lagging development of the collective economy. All these problems harmed villagers’ economic interests and sense of well-being, and they wanted village officials to address them. These problems indicate clearly that the main contradictions in the village today are between villagers on one side, and incompetent, corrupt officials, predatory entrepreneurs and village toughs on the other. With Tiger’s and Dog’s election, the hope is even dimmer that the central concerns of the villagers will be addressed because these two have been the greatest beneficiaries of the existing, unfair and unjust economic and political order. As a smart businessman, it is conceivable that Tiger might give villagers a few more carrots to pacify them just as he did in vote buying. But there is no doubt that he will try to get back his investment and much more.

Discussion and Analysis

How have direct elections influenced politics in West Village? What has changed and what remains unchanged after four rounds of direct elections? The promotion by the central government of the Organic Law of Village Committees (1998) had an immediate and powerful impact on villagers’ political participation. Their strong desire for change was clearly expressed in RW’s significant lead, without campaigning, over the incumbent in the primary of the 2001 election, but a behind-the-doors deal between the governing elite and the potential challengers aborted genuine competition. This set the tone for direct elections in West Village as mainly a means of elite politics. In the 2004 election, RW, the only candidate who could rally elite and popular support, felt ready to challenge the entrenched village director. The opposition coalition successfully removed the old village director in the election; then, through petition, the Party secretary, who was regarded by most villagers as the one more responsible for the village’s poor governance. The downfall of both the old village director and the Party branch secretary was no less than a revolutionary change because, in completely shaking up the leadership, it went beyond the official purview of village elections. It reflected villagers’ strong discontent with the old entrenched and corrupt leadership and their great empowerment by direct elections.

However, for various reasons, the popularly elected leaders since 2004 have consistently failed to meet villagers’ expectations for change. RW, the first elected village director, inherited a leadership deeply divided between the village committee and the Party branch committee as well as empty village coffers. Even more challenging were the accumulated problems left by the old leadership, which could be boiled down to serious encroachment on the village property by a number of village toughs and predatory entrepreneurs. Although he possessed a popular mandate, RW lacked the political will and resources to address the accumulated problems or to adopt a democratic and principled governing style. In our interviews, he made comments such as this more than once:

Democracy won’t work in Chinese villages because they’re still a community of old acquaintances (shouren shehui), of human feelings and relations (renqing shehui). I’d love to work for my fellow villagers. But if you ask me to hurt men young and old (laoshao yemen’r), I won’t do it.

Halfway into his term, villagers had already been disappointed by his weakness and unprincipled way of handling the new problems caused by unruly villagers and village toughs. On the other hand, without an effective rule of law and strong support from the local governments, it seems both unfair and unrealistic to expect an elected official to stand up to village toughs who have no qualms about harming people and their property. ¹¹

SL, the second elected village director, was in a much better position in terms of leadership unity and financial resources. During his term, he and CF (the Party secretary) were of the same faction and the village’s coffers had never been so full. These two leaders were confronted with the same challenge as RW: village toughs’ and predatory entrepreneurs’ continued encroachment on village property. Not only did they fail to address this problem, but they were, unlike RW, suspected of financial corruption themselves. What was more, they were also suspected of colluding with Tiger and Dog and other village toughs in fraudulently handling village construction projects. This administration seemed to have returned to the pattern of poor governance and financial corruption under the old, entrenched leadership before the direct elections. Or in all likelihood, the new leaders after 2007 went even further in colluding with the increasingly powerful predatory entrepreneurs.

In their study of the institutional barriers to village democratization, O’Brien and Han have identified five major impediments—including both formal and informal forces—to improved governance through democratically elected village committees. In West Village, three—the township, the Party branch, and criminal elements (or pseudo-criminal elements in this case)—played a major role in affecting village governance while lineages and religious organizations did not.

The township, the local government directly above the village, failed to play a positive role in village politics and governance by intervening where it should not have, but not intervening where it should have: it did not, after the 2004 election, follow through on its promise to investigate the old Party secretary’s financial record. It did not help stop the village toughs’ illegal seizure of the sand farms. It violated procedural and democratic rules by helping CF become interim Party secretary. It probably knew of, but tolerated, the vote buying in the 2010 election. No wonder villagers have no confidence in the township leadership.

The relationship between the Party branch and the village committee in West Village depended very much on the kind of factional politics (discussed below) that O’Brien and Han have not identified. Clans and kinship groups in the village were the basic units for political mobilization; some believed that they had affected the outcome of the elections (they referred to RW’s repeated election into the village committee as an example). However, they did not seem to have affected the quality of governance, as factions among the elite cut across the lines of lineage or kinship groups. Although a belief in fengshui and deities is popular, there is no organized religion in the village.

Of all the impediments O’Brien and Han identify, “Local strongmen and gangsters pose a far more direct threat to democracy” (O’Brien and Han, 2009: 375). That is certainly true of West Village, where village toughs and predatory entrepreneurs posed the most serious challenge to the village leadership, both the old and the new, the community, and most recently, democratic elections. Taking advantage of the disorder created by poor governance in the village’s economic and political transition, a few village toughs had turned into predatory entrepreneurs, Tiger being the most successful one. Village leaders, both the old and the new, were afraid of them, tried to appease them, and more recently even colluded with them for mutual benefit. Direct elections gave them an opportunity to gain political power, which would, in turn, further enhance their economic interests and opportunities to encroach on collective property. As we have seen, Tiger and Dog won the 2010 election through vote buying and threats of violence, and they now dominate the new village committee. And Tiger has already taken the next move toward dominating the Party committee and the whole leadership.

In his extensive study on the rising problem of hunhun (toughs) in rural China, Chen Baifeng identifies three generations of village toughs that have evolved from 1980s to the present. Tiger belongs to the smart and sophisticated minority of the second generation who had taken advantage of the economic transition since the 1990s and transformed into successful businessmen. As a “super power” beyond control in the village, village toughs have fundamentally changed the logic of human interactions, power relations, and moral order in rural communities. They are actually both a major cause as well as a symptom of the deepening rural crisis. Villagers and village cadres are either intimidated or helpless, and “even state power sometimes is powerless.” Village toughs are hard to deal with because, like Tiger, many of them are not openly criminal and enjoy good connections with local officials. What is more, some village toughs, again like Tiger, have already become village leaders through elections, which gives them further protection under the cloak of legitimacy. The problem, according to Chen and other Chinese scholars, is widespread in many regions of rural China (Chen, 2008: thesis synopsis, 1). ¹²

Apart from the problem of village toughs, another reason for little improved governance in West Village has been a lack of popular control of and participation in governance. Some scholars stress the improvement made in China’s village governance with the establishment of democratic institutions promoted by central and provincial governments (Su and Yang, 2005; Alpermann, 2009). But the crux of the matter has been how these institutions actually operate. In West Village, institutions for checks and balances such as the Villagers’ Representatives Assembly (Cunmin daibiao huiyi), the Villagers’ Financial Supervision Group (Cunmin licai xiaozu), and the system of “transparency in village affairs” (cunwu gongkai) were established, but, as in most villages, they could not function. ¹³ Officials could manipulate them by assisting their allies to get elected or by incorporating those who were not their allies through material inducement or “pulling relationships” (la guanxi). If these democratic institutions had truly functioned, they could have made village officials more accountable and might have helped them stand up to village toughs and the predatory economic elite. Unfortunately, villagers have not developed citizenship awareness to the point that they actively participate in village elections and governance. They have not taken seriously the election and operation of the Villagers’ Representatives Assembly, thus allowing these organizations to serve mostly as a rubber stamp for village leaders. ¹⁴

For the reasons mentioned above, neither new village committee (2004–2007, 2007–2010) addressed the accumulated problems of public concern—continued encroachment on and unfair distribution of collective property. Nor had they much improved the village’s governance in terms of transparency and accountability. It should be pointed out that village leaders in most cases have followed the procedural rules in governance: for example, they got their construction projects approved by the Villagers’ Representatives Assembly and their reimbursements endorsed by the Villagers’ Financial Supervision Group. But this observation of procedural rules did not prevent them from engaging in financial misconduct. As a consequence, villagers’ sense of empowerment, which had been high in the 2001 and 2004 elections, was soon replaced by a growing sense of powerlessness, apathy, and cynicism. Based on my interviews from 2005 onward, more and more villagers came to believe that elections had made no difference and elected officials were no better than the old cadres: “Whoever comes to power is in it to grab for himself (tan, lao).” This increased political pessimism and cynicism prepared the way for the general acceptance of or resignation to the vote buying in the 2010 election.

More than a loss of confidence in elected officials, little improved governance in West Village eroded villagers’ confidence in the electoral system. Yet it was the rampant vote buying in 2010 that fundamentally shook their confidence in the leadership of the Communist Party. To my surprise, four elite members of different factions including RW, who was part of the coalition with Tiger and Dog, made the same comment on different occasions: “the Communist Party is hopeless” or “the Communist Party is finished.” Previously, these four would always make a distinction between the corruption of local officials and the purity of the Party center and its policies. ¹⁵ Their reaction shows their frustration and cynicism to the extreme. There are many factors that account for the erosion of their confidence: to begin with, vote buying in village elections became increasingly serious in the township, with 31 out of the 34 villages practicing it in 2010. What was more, the township and county authorities failed to intervene, even with full knowledge of what was going on. Villagers also had other failed experiences in trying to get help from local and even Beijing authorities to stop officials’ financial corruption (the unaccounted overspending of 2 million in the 2009 construction) or predatory entrepreneurs (the illegal sand business). All these made them believe that the Party leadership all the way up was rotten to the core and beyond repair. This change in attitude reflected a deepened crisis of confidence in the political system and contradicts various theories of empowerment as well as the conclusion by Kennedy and others that “almost universal dissatisfaction with elected village cadres” does not affect villagers’ trust in the central government and confidence in democratic elections (Kennedy, 2009: 393).

In contrast to the decline in villagers’ enthusiasm for political participation, interest in elections among the elite remained high because of the high returns to holding office. Due to the size of the village and its location in the Beijing area, the annual salary for the village director, the Party secretary (21,600 yuan), and committee members (14,000 yuan) was five to six times higher than the national average. ¹⁶ These are large sums in rural China, especially in a village that is not very rich. In addition, officials can enjoy various perks such as an annual bonus and liberal spending with public funds on food, entertainment, and communication. The most outrageous is the monthly transportation subsidy for the Party secretary in the amount of 1,600 yuan. He recently had spent over 400,000 yuan on a new car. For predatory entrepreneurs like Tiger, what was more attractive was the opportunity as a village leader to get bribes and kickbacks, or otherwise embezzle funds from the increasing number of construction projects and the recently enriched village coffers. These illegal financial gains can be ten or even a hundred times more than a regular salary. Because of the loopholes in the village’s budgetary and accounting system and the power of connections, the recent reform in “the management of village finances by the township accounting office” (cuncai xiangguan) has not effectively controlled village officials’ financial corruption. RW, the first elected official, revealed an insider’s point of view:

The policy is good nowadays. To be village director has a lot of benefits. There are plenty of opportunities to apply for money [for various projects]. Be sure to treat the guy in charge to a good dinner. Then give [him] a little [cash]. He will approve it [the project application].

Factions in West Village were formed among the elite in the competitive electoral politics. It is necessary to make a distinction between factions and factional alliances: factions that were formed among elite members after direct elections began in 2001 have been stable because they are based on friendship and long-term common interests. On the other hand, alliances that were formed between factions before each election are driven by temporary interests of their members to help each other to win the election, and hence are less stable. In addition, electoral competition between factions or factional alliances among the elite is not driven by ideology or an electoral agenda but by kinship and personal loyalty. In other words, it is candidate-centered, not issue-oriented.

Factionalism has produced both positive and negative effects: it effectively frustrated the vote buying by the incumbent in the 2004 election and helped improve the quality of the first two competitive elections (2004, 2007). On the other hand, it resulted in a serious division in the leadership after the 2004 election and reduced the effectiveness of the leadership. Conversely, if the two top leaders were of the same faction, like SL and CF, then the checks and balances between factions in the elections usually could not reach them once they were in power. That was an important reason for the rise of financial corruption among officials after 2007. A weak and marginalized RW seemed unable to function as an effective check on leaders’ abuses.

Elite empowerment includes both competition for office and opposition activism. As for the latter, a clear pattern of resistance to official abuse of power can be seen in the persistent petitioning to remove the Party secretary after the 2004 election, the challenge to a secret deal by the leadership in the 2008 running-water project, and the report in early 2009 to the Beijing municipal anti-corruption bureau about officials’ financial misconduct. Although the first two challenges were successful, opposition activists have not been able to turn their resistance into an effective system of checks and balances in the village’s governance. Nor do they seem to have that goal in mind.

Most damaging to democratization were predatory entrepreneurs, who would not abide by the rules in political competition. Yet the phenomenon in West Village was more complex. Tiger is no ordinary village tough but a smart and sophisticated one with considerable popular appeal. Some villagers seemed to cherish the hope or illusion that Tiger, a strongman known for his zhangyi character (loyalty and generosity), might bring about change for the better. They seemed unable to see through his ulterior motives and schemes to get his hands on village property and the recently fattened village treasury. Or even if they could, they seemed to hope that Tiger would deliver them a larger share of material benefits than other officials could. ¹⁷ Was this opportunism of the powerless to make the best of a bad situation? Or did it reflect a deep-rooted desire among Chinese ordinary folk (laobaixing) for a strong man (haohan) such as a Water Margin character to stand up to corrupt officials and deliver them some justice? It seemed obvious that villagers’ acceptance of or resignation to vote buying had much to do with their discontent and disillusionment with the incumbent, the current leadership, and the elected officials since 2004. It indicated a profound cynicism and desperate hope against hope for an alternative.

Comparing West Village’s case with O’Brien and Han’s assessment of China’s village elections as a whole, we find that until the 2010 election, the pattern of elections and governance in the village’s first three direct elections seemed to fit what they identify as the general trend that elections have much improved while governance lags far behind. On closer look, however, the improvement in West Village’s elections was more in form than in substance. It was true that voter turn-out remained high (from 70 to 80 percent), elections were truly competitive, and secret balloting was strictly observed. Yet this high procedural quality was accompanied by a steady decline in the quality of popular participation due to villagers’ loss of confidence in elected officials and the electoral process itself. If the majority felt empowered in the 2001 and 2004 elections, that sense of empowerment was seriously undermined or gone in the 2007 election. Even worse, in the 2010 election, many villagers seemed to have been willing to trade their democratic right for a cash payment.

What has happened in West Village reveals that the procedural quality on which O’Brien and Han as well as the scholars in the empowerment school base their assessment of village elections is not sufficient and can even be misleading. For a more complete and nuanced picture we need to include the actual behavior of political participants, which constitutes the substantive quality of elections. For instance, if we look at West Village’s 2010 election per se, it did not seem to have violated the procedural rules. As mentioned, for its smooth operation the township even gave the village leadership a cash award. Yet once we go beyond the actual elections and look into the campaign process, then illegal acts of vote buying and threats of violence become apparent. As these shady practices usually take place in private and are hard to detect, it cautions us all the more to probe below the surface rather than rely solely on studying procedures in order to judge the quality of elections. The same caution should apply to those who adopt an institutional approach in the study of post-election governance.

O’Brien and Han’s assessment of much improved elections and little improved governance is also questionable because the dichotomy is self-contradictory or at least cannot stand for long. The West Village case shows that good elections in terms of active popular participation need improved governance, or at least the hope of it, to be sustainable. Without such improvement or hope, the quality, if not the scope, of popular participation is bound to decline. This should again alert us to the problem in most studies on village elections of over-emphasizing the procedural quality of elections without sufficient attention to the quality of content and of results in both elections and governance.

The dramatic downturn in the quality of the most recent election in West Village and those of other villages in the township tells us that direct elections in their early stage were very fluid and hence we should be cautious about drawing conclusions about them after one or two good or bad ones. It also helps us better appreciate Qingshan Tan’s urgent call to create “a national electoral commission, tasked with implementing, supervising and adjudicating village elections” (Tan, 2009: 411).

Conclusion

The series of four direct elections and their impact in West Village from 2001 to 2010 reveal a complex picture. Much progress had been made in the procedural quality in the first three elections (2001, 2004, and 2007). However, the most recent election (2010) suffered a severe setback, with two predatory entrepreneurs coming to power through vote buying and threats of violence. In governance, the new leadership has made little improvement despite radical and multiple changes in leadership. In fact, we can see a downward spiral from incompetency and division among the first new leadership (2004 to 2007) to both incompetency and corruption in the second new leadership (2007 to 2010). In political participation, elite interest remained high, but that promoted factional politics rather than democratic governance in terms of transparency and accountability. In contrast, villagers’ early sense of empowerment was replaced by a sense of disillusionment, apathy, and cynicism. If we consider the substantive quality of popular participation, the seemingly steady progress in the first three direct elections should be discounted. And the sudden reversal of the 2010 election makes more sense. After four rounds of direct elections, the beneficiaries were a few members of the political and economic elite. These findings, as a whole, support the disempowerment argument of direct elections. ¹⁸

If democratic elections introduced into West Village since 2001 have so far failed to improve its governance, why have they not worked? This study has identified at least three basic causes or problems: first, a lack of citizenship awareness and training about rights and responsibilities among both villagers and elected officials prevented them from engaging in democratic governance with effective checks and balances; second, village toughs and predatory entrepreneurs grew to be an uncontrollable force in the village; and third, the central and the local governments were unable to provide an effective rule of law and necessary protection for villagers’ basic political rights and personal security. Mainly because of these, radical changes in leadership have not been able to improve governance, with the result that the accumulated problems left over by the old cadres continue and popular discontent persists. Most recently, village toughs and predatory entrepreneurs have hijacked elections and controlled both public power and village property. Thus, democratic elections, by empowering village toughs and predatory entrepreneurs while making villagers feel powerless and helpless, have produced results opposite of those one might have predicted. West Village is by no means an exceptional case; rather, it is but a small part of the ongoing “graying of rural society.” ¹⁹ To address the widespread and the most damaging problem of village toughs, the state must play a crucial role in building an effective rule of law and in protecting villagers’ basic political rights and sense of security. ²⁰