New Contradictions in China's Countryside: Elections and Re-Centralization

Two contradictory trends are emerging in China's countryside: one is an attempt to increase upper level control over village finances to reduce peasant burdens and curb cadre corruption; the other is a new policy to require the village party secretary to stand for popular election, in addition to the village committee head. Based on recent fieldwork in China's countryside, Jean Oi will describe the fiscal problems that emerged as the reforms cut peasant burdens and how the new "two-ballot system" works for the selection of village leaders. She will then consider whether these two policy trends are creating new and potentially more serious problems for local governance.

Jean Oi is author of Rural China Takes Off: Institutional Foundations of Economic Reform.

This talk is part of the "China's Year of Decision" colloquium series sponsored with the Center for East Asian Studies.

Photo by Jesse Warren