The Paradigm Shift in the Disciplining of Village Cadres in China: From Mao to Xi

Village cadres are important agents for the state yet disciplining them has been difficult. There are few disciplinary tools that can easily hold them to account. Prior to 2018, Party discipline did not apply to non-Party cadres. Legislation was ambiguous in relation to these grassroots agents and had to rely heavily on legal interpretation. The impact of the cadre evaluation system on village cadres, who are not considered to be public servants on the state payroll, was limited. This situation has changed since 2018. The party-state has consolidated and institutionalized ways in which grassroots cadres are checked and disciplined. Instead of relying on policy regulation, which had been the dominant disciplinary method since 1949, village cadres are now fully subject to Party rules and state laws. These changes have been accomplished through the application of three measures. First, village Party secretaries are to serve concurrently as village heads, and members of village and Party committees are to overlap, thereby making them subject to Party discipline. Second, village cadres are now considered to be “public agents” and are on an equal legal footing with other state agents. Finally, a campaign waged by the criminal justice apparatus cleaned up village administration and prepared it for upcoming village elections in a new era.

Why Non-Democracy Engages with Western Democracy-Promotion Programs

ABSTRACT Between the mid-1990s and the mid-2010s, the Chinese government was distinctly open to the Western offer of democracy-assistance programs. It cooperated with a number of Western organizations to improve the rule of law, village elections, administrative capacity, and civil society in China. Why did the Chinese government engage with democracy promoters who tried to develop these democratic attributes within China? The author argues that the government intended to use Western aid to its advantage. The Chinese Communist Party had launched governance reforms to strengthen its regime legitimacy, and Chinese officials found that Western democracy assistance could be used to facilitate their own governance-reform programs. The article traces the process of how the government’s strategic intention translated into policies of selective openness, and includes evidence from firsthand interviews, propaganda materials, and research by Chinese experts. The findings show how democracy promoters and authoritarian leaders have different expectations of the effects of limited democratic reform within nondemocratic systems. Empirically, reflecting on the so-called golden years of China’s engagement with the West sheds new light on the Chinese Communist Party’s survival strategy through authoritarian legitimation.

Understanding Experimentation and Implementation

Studies of local governance in China often point to nimble experimentation but problematic implementation. To reconcile these competing images, it is useful to clarify the concepts of experimentation and implementation and see how they unfolded in one policy area. The history of China’s Open Government Information (OGI) initiative shows that the experimentation stage sometimes proceeds well and produces new policy options, but may falter if local leaders are unwilling to carry out an experiment. And the implementation stage often poses challenges, but may improve if the Center initiates new, small-scale experiments and encourages local innovation. This suggests that the experimentation and implementation stages are not so different when officials in Beijing and the localities have diverging interests and the Center is more supportive of a measure than local officials. The ups and downs of OGI, and also village elections, can be traced to the policy goal of monitoring local cadres, the central–local divide, and the pattern of support and opposition within the state.

Feminist-Inspired NGO Activism in Contemporary China: Expanding the Inductive Approach in Qualitative Inquiry

This article analyzes feminist praxis and nongovernmental organization (NGO) activism in the Heyang Project, which endeavored to increase women’s political participation in rural governance through village elections in Shaanxi Province, China (2004–2013). It presents an NGO-centered framework to challenge the Western and state-centered lenses that have been used to frame and assess the development of NGOs, civil society, and the women’s movement in China. I disrupt the exclusive power upheld by the researcher by inserting the interpretative voices of the researched. I demonstrate that the Project transcends the predicament of a binary conceptualization. The NGO successfully interweaves and juxtaposes seemly contradictory forces.

Analisis Tingkat Partisipasi Masyarakat Dalam Pemilihan Kepala Desa Orahili Kecamatan Pulau-Pulau Batu Kabupaten Nias Selatan

Participation of people are needed to have political participation in the village’s election. Because participation are means for development and proceeded to the political democracy. The subject in this study is “ how participates society in the village elections in the village of Orahili village” and “ Any factor of what drives society can participate in the head of the village election in Orahili village in 2014”. Research results and discussion explains the participation at Orahili village very high participation in the village’s election activities, the first conclution that level of awareness community begins to grow and the second, people are looking for an experienced leader in government to be sure to smister and serve the public without limit.

Pendidikan Politik Pemilih Muda Dalam Pemilihan Kepala Desa Serentak di Kabupaten Bandung 2019

ABSTRACT Young voters in the head of village election simultaneously 2019’s are a new generation of voters who have different characteristics and characters, backgrounds, experiences and challenges from the previous generation of voters. Most of them come from among students, have good economic status, and generally live in urban or surrounding areas. They are very open to learning new, critical and independent things. The contribution of young voters in the field of village politics is based on the role of youth as controlling agents. Young voters, especially in villages, can provide insight to village communities regarding the head of village elections so that the community can actively participate in village head elections in order to minimize abstentions. The role of political education for young voters is very important to be implemented in achieving a high level of success in the head of village election simultaneously in Bandung Regency in 2019. Key words: political education, young voters, the head of village election ABSTRAK Pemilih muda pada pilkades serentak di Kabupaten Bandung tahun 2019 adalah generasi baru pemilih yang memiliki sifat dan karakter, latar belakang, pengalaman dan tantangan yang berbeda dengan para pemilih generasi sebelumnya. Sebagian besar di antara mereka berasal dari kalangan pelajar, berstatus ekonomi baik, dan pada umumnya tinggal di kawasan perkotaan atau sekitarnya. Mereka sangat terbuka untuk mempelajari hal-hal yang baru, kritis dan juga mandiri. Kontribusi pemilih muda dalam bidang politik desa berlandaskan atas peran pemuda sebagai Agen controlling. Pemilih muda terutama di desa dapat memberikan wawasan kepada masyarakat desa terkait pemilihan kepala desa agar masyarakat dapat turut aktif berpartisipasi dalam pemilihan kepala desa guna meminimalisir golput. Peran pendidikan politik bagi pemilih muda sangat penting untuk dilaksanakan dalam mencapai tingkat kesuksesan yang tinggi pada pilkades serentak di Kabupaten Bandung Tahun 2019. Kata kunci: pendidikan politik, pemilih muda, pemilihan kepala desa

The Paradox of Incumbency: Patronage, Clientelism, and Incumbent Defeat in Village Chief Elections

This article examines the practices of patronage and clientelism during village elections. Examining Mekarsari Village, Yogyakarta, this study finds that patronage strategies such as programmatic politics, vote buying, club goods, and individual gifts were used by all candidates during village elections owing to the lack of strong social bonds between candidates and voters. The incumbent with all advantages and access to material resources also used patronise and clientelism as strategy, but in fact, it cannot guarantee they win the election. This suggests that the societal relationships and practices of patronage and clientelism continue to affect voter’s preference. Applying sociological, psychological, and rational approaches to understanding voter behaviour especially in Java, the study found that, apart from the instrumental and social distance considerations, territorial representation also influenced voter’s preference at Village.