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Many have studied whether China will democratize in the near future, but few have asked what would happen to China if China were to democratize. This paper sets out to explore this question in light of lessons from new democracies. Four lessons are drawn from new democracies. First is the importance of balancing state capacity and social power. Second is that the role of political elites can sometimes be more decisive than structural factors. Third is that culture might matter more than institutions. Fourth is the need to avoid the pitfall of economic populism. Reviewing China’s conditions through the lens of these lessons, this paper argues that factors such as state capacity, socio-economic conditions and a culture of pragmatism favor democratic consolidation in China, but the lure of “strongman” populist-authoritarianism, the tradition of uncompromising political elites and fundamentalist nationalism could sabotage a transition to democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper intends to build a case for a third alternative that can reconcile the two opposing views of democracy, i.e., the consensual vs. the adversarial, through a reexamination and reconstruction of Chinese traditional theories of political governance. The paper links the rule of virtue with consensual politics, and the rule of law with adversary politics, By focusing on the roles of virtue and law, and their importance to the acquisition and maintenance of original and utilitarian dimensions of political legitimacy, the paper proposes a hybrid version of democracy that will continue the dualist political tradition while enabling necessary political modernization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the landmark volume The Search for Deliberative Democracy in China (Leib and He eds. ), a growing number of theoretical and empirical studies in the context of China have advanced our knowledge of deliberative democracy in comparative settings. This paper aims to discuss the recent development and prospects of deliberative democracy in China, with particular focus on the approach of a deliberative system that has not been adequately addressed in the context of China. This paper proposes an analytical framework for the concept of deliberative capacity building in the context of contemporary China. The paper analyses three dimensions of deliberative capacity building: social capacity, institutional capacity; and participatory capacity of a deliberative system. The three dimensions lay particular emphasis on the public sphere, empowered space, and deliberative actors respectively. The multi-dimensional framework considers deliberative capacity building as a process by which the three dimensions synergize and evolve with each other to produce a functional deliberative system incorporating isolated deliberative practices. The multi-dimensional analyses suggest that deliberative capacity building is critical to democratization in China, as it produces a stronger public sphere, more effective government responsiveness and improved participatory competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically explores and evaluates the theoretical innovations in the conceptualization of Weber's theory of legitimacy and its application to the study of Chinese politics. It argues that there is a need for a re-conceptualization of the concept in order to give due recognition to the process of legitimating power based on legal-rational principles in the current context. Thus this paper develops a theoretical framework on legitimacy by relating theory to practice in Chinese electoral participation and the local politics of legitimizing rural authority and improving governance at the grassroots level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China’s policy of reform and opening has led to extraordinary economic and societal changes during the past 30 years. One aspect of this progressive, incremental change has been the remarkable development of democracy—both at the grassroots level and within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP, recognizing that political reforms must accompany economic reforms, began to pursue a distinctively Chinese path to political reform and modernization—a socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics. Inspired by leadership from Deng Xiaoping to Hu Jintao, Chinese citizens living in the countryside and townships have held competitive elections for local leadership for over a decade. This paper posits that the rise and institutionalization of competitive, popular local elections is indicative of how the CCP, in fostering a Harmonious Socialist Society, has created a viable, Confucian, and uniquely Chinese alternative to Western liberal democracy in local governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Village elections have been implemented throughout China for more than a decade. Much improvement has been made in the institutionalization of village elections. However, village election is widely viewed as producing little effect on village governance. What has been perceived as electoral achievement has yet to be translated into improving the way villages are governed. Why has village election remained largely irrelevant to effective village self-government? This paper intends to answer the question by examining some causal factors responsible for ineffective village governance. Specifically, this paper looks at the dysfunctional village governance structure, township re-assertiveness over villages, and the village dual-leadership factor. This paper proposes a new governing model that incorporates major village players to ensure that village elections will lead to effective village governance in the countryside. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is no obvious and direct correlation between the provincial level of economic development and democratic level of village elections. There is a great disparity in the level of rural democratization and the implementation of village self-governance among and within provinces. The modernization model alone cannot explain why village elections work well in some provinces but not in others. This paper looks at the political elite's ongoing efforts at provincial level to conduct village elections and implement village self-governance in rural China. These efforts include the strategies for crafting village democracy employed by provincial elites: elite cooperation, local legislature, political responsibility, political programming, and the art of balancing party leadership and village elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is focused on regional redistribution of revenue of China and proposes to test two hypotheses. The first one is the positive relationship between inequality in the distribution of local fiscal situation and the central redistribution. The second one is a possible political channel of redistribution: the median voter hypothesis. Both hypotheses are confirmed empirically by the study. Therefore the median voter hypothesis is helpful for analyzing the redistribution to narrow the regional disparities of local expenditure among provinces, although there is no formal voting process on regional redistribution. In the process of decision-making in China, regional preference can be expressed sufficiently without voting actions. Thus Representative Democracy might not be a prerequisite for Median Voter Hypothesis in the case of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the following questions: What are the key elements of the middle class? What do they really want? To what extent can the middle class serve as an agent for democratic change? Why is the Party trying to co-opt the middle class? Is the middle class a willing partner with the state or an autonomous force in opposition to the state? The paper concludes that at present, the new middle class as a whole does not pose any significant threat to current regime. It quietly endorses the leadership in Beijing. Nevertheless, in the long run, the middle class will have a significant impact upon the socio-political structure in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intellectual discourse on democracy has made important impacts on China's transformation and the Chinese pursuit of democracy. There has been an intense divergence in understanding and interpretation of democracy among the Chinese scholars. In spite of different point of views among scholars in China, there is a growing consensus among them that political reform is the right answer to China's today's problems and democracy is a good thing for China. This paper analyzes the on-gong heated debates on democracy. It reviews the main structure, characteristics, and implications of the debates on democracy among three major schools of thought, namely: democracy with Chinese characteristics, liberalism, and New-Leftism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date, China's deliberative institutions have mainly been seen as small-scale mechanisms for controlling local social unrest. This paper explores how deliberative principles in China work at the national level. The case under scrutiny is China's new healthcare reform. Drawing on the existing empirical studies, Chinese-language reports and articles, official document analysis, and on several unstructured interviews with Chinese academics, the article attempts to evaluate the extent to which deliberative democratic principles are present in the process of healthcare policy making. To achieve this analytical goal, it develops and applies five criteria of good deliberation. The analysis suggests that the public policy process in China is now more inclusive and pluralistic than it was in the past. This arguably indicates that China's political system is moving in a new direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many, the future of China's political development hinges upon the role of the newly rising middle class. However, little has been done to empirically examine the characteristics of the Chinese middle class. This paper is an effort to fill in this gap. It shows that, the Chinese middle class pays greater attention to politics and engages more in informal/personal activities in dealing with conflicts with government policies or officials. However, the behavior of the middle class as an aggregate is not significantly different from that of other classes when it comes to political activities that require greater civic engagement or greater courage to confront the political system. The members of the Chinese middle class are not ready to be agents of political development in action although they hold higher democratic attitudes in mind as shown in previous studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does voting in village elections affect one’s assessment of China’s democracy? In a time when a majority of the Chinese people believe that China is a democracy, this question has important implications for the prospects of bottom-up democratization. Village elections may play a positive role if they can bring people to realize that China is not a democracy. By contrast, village elections may play a negative role if they reinforce the belief that China is already a democracy. Using the China data of the ABS II, I show that voting in village elections does lead to more negative democratic assessment, but this does not imply a positive role of village elections for bottom-up democratization, because the negative effect of voting is only detected in elections of poor quality. In free and fair elections, voting has no influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Will China democratize? If so, how soon? Relying on classical modernization theory and observations of China’s extraordinary economic growth, many prominent scholars have recently predicted that China is destined for a “short march” to democracy over the next decade. This article problematizes such predictions. I replicate the prominent forecast model used by Henry Rowen and show that even such classical modernization models of democratic transitions actually do not predict democracy in China before 2030–35 at the earliest. I also survey major reasons to think that China’s march to democracy will be a very long march, not a short one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence suggests that the quality of grassroots political reform varies throughout rural China from fair elections to electoral manipulation. This reflects an uneven supply of reforms. However, top-down implementation is not a complete measure of success when it comes to the introduction of grassroots reform. Rural folks are good judges of institutional qualities, such as procedural fairness. It is their attitudes that are associated with the support for democracy. This is called the supply and support model. I modify and apply this model to rural China, and show that support for democratic institutions and ideals can develop within an authoritarian regime such as the People’s Republic of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the next stage in the movement towards self-government in rural China: that is, the direct election of town-level executives. Theoretically, as the article asserts, with the mechanisms and statutes currently in place, direct elections at the town level could generate a two-pronged disaffection. First, there may be alienation between the executives directly elected at the town level and those already directly elected at the village level, namely a “vertical organizational alienation.” Second, there may be alienation between the directly elected “town executives” and the town legislature (People’s Congress), namely a “horizontal governmental alienation.” After describing the possible points of confrontation, the article concludes by proposing how such discord can be prevented from arising and suggests that until the potential problems attendant on these elections have been successfully tackled direct elections at the town level should not be extended into other regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the West, the middle class has been considered a potent agent of the sociopolitical transition toward democracy and the cornerstone of democratic rule. Does a middle class in China think and act democratically and hence serve as the harbinger of democratic change in that country? This study attempts to answer this critical question by examining the attitudinal and behavioral orientations of middle-class individuals toward grassroots self-government in urban China. It is based on data collected from a representative-sample survey conducted in Beijing. The findings indicate that China's middle class expects grassroots self-government to be formed in a democratic way; yet the middle class is critical of the currently-implemented self-government system because it is not organized as democratically as they expect, and therefore the middle class is less likely to participate in the system. These findings have significant implications for the role of the Chinese middle class in the democratization of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using Max Weber's theory of legitimacy and transition, this article suggests that the biggest challenge for China's new leadership is to transform the Communist Party into an institutionalized ruling party. After analyzing the scenarios of democratization, legitimation, decay, or repression, resulting from the interactions between public contention and the ruling elite, this article argues that the CCP has accomplished the transition from a revolutionary to a reformist party but is now somewhere between claiming to "govern for the people" and "hanging on to power." To become an institutionalized ruling party, the CCP needs to curtail official corruption and control its membership growth. There are, however, some serious political and personal limitations that China's new leaders will have to overcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]