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Consultative Elections of Chinese Township Leaders

The Case of an Experiment in Ya'an, Sichuan

East Asian Department, Aarhus University, Denmark

Jørgen Elklit

Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Denmark

Dong Lisheng

political science at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China

The article presents observations from a 2006 township election experiment in Ya'an Municipality, Sichuan Province. Gradual institutionalization of elections to Chinese village committees has for two decades fascinated those interested in social and political development in rural China. Elections at the next level—the townships—were seen by many, in China and outside, as a natural next step. For this reason, the election of a township mayor in Buyun in 1998 attracted considerable attention, but the official reaction was negative. The elections in Ya'an juxtaposed against this background are of considerable interest as they can be seen as a way of testing the direction and limits of future reforms. The Ya'an elections were not only for the mayor, but also for the entire township leadership, including the township Party secretary. However, the final selection was—as previously—made at higher politico-administrative levels with the voting results serving as just one input to the decision-making process. For this reason, these elections should be termed "consultative," and we suggest that such consultative elections can become an important tool in the party-state's cadre management.

Key Words: township election • political reform • consultative elections • cadre appointments • local governance • bottom-up innovation

China Information, Vol. 22, No. 1, 67-89 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0920203X07087722


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