https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3916-9618
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ABSTRACT
A substantial body of research has revealed the historical transformation of clientelism in the countryside of capitalist societies. Although rural China has distinct politico-economic structures, I argue that the framework of clientelist transformation also fits it. I identify the abolition of agricultural taxes as a watershed moment in facilitating the transformation. This national policy marked a dramatic change in state-peasant relations from state extraction based on taxes to state provision of economic subsidies, state extraction through land expropriation, and market extraction through wage labor and contract farming. In the former relation, clientelism based on the ethics of egalitarian distribution and subsistence security protected peasants from excessive extraction. In the latter, clientelism based on external linkages is instrumental for peasants to access state and market resources. The new clientelism widens the economic inequality and facilitates class conflicts within villages; it also opens villages up to more state and market extraction.
Acknowledgements
I want to thank Jun Borras, Jingzhong Ye, Lianjiang Li, Journal of Peasant Studies (JPS), and College of Humanities and Development Studies (COHD) of China Agricultural University for providing me with an opportunity to present my draft at the 2019 Writeshop-Workshop in Critical Agrarian Studies and Scholar-Activism. I also want to thank Collective of Agrarian Scholar-Activists from the South (CASAS) for the support. For comments and suggestions, I gratefully acknowledge Xi Chen, Chi Shun Fong, Jenniffer Vargas Reina, Lizahmy Makena NTONJIRA, and the anonymous reviewers. Special thanks go to one of the anonymous reviewers for his/her remarkably helpful suggestions, tolerance, and patience.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1 There is debate between moral economists and neo-classical economists over the nature of clientelism in traditional peasant societies. Neo-classical economists argue that the traditional system is maintained because clients face the problem of collective action. Rather than following ethics, patrons use strategies to prevent clients from gaining power and to maintain divisions between them (Popkin Citation1979). This article follows the scholarship of moral economy, as it is more useful for explaining the historical transformation of clientelism in rural China.
2 Scholars use different terminology to describe the transformation. Weingrod (Citation1968) refers to a transformation in clientelism from the anthropological sense to the political science sense; Scott (Citation1972a) refers to a transformation from traditional to contemporary clientelism; for Graziano (Citation1976), it is a change from the clientelism of notables to party-mediated patronage; Archer (Citation1990) regards it as a transition from traditional to broker clientelism. For simplicity, this article uses old and new clientelism throughout.
3 Village cadres in this article refer to village committee members and village party branch members.
4 The argument is further strengthened by the fact that H County and Heng Yang County, where much of the original research on rightful resistance was conducted, belong to the same municipality and share very similar socioeconomic and political backgrounds.
5 Interview conducted on December 12, 2018.
6 Interview conducted on May 13, 2018.
7 Interview conducted on May 25, 2018.
8 Interview conducted on May13, 2018.
9 Interview conducted on May 21, 2018.
10 Interview conducted on December 12, 2018.
11 Interview conducted on May 18, 2018.
12 Interview conducted on May 13, 2018.
13 Interview conducted on May 13, 2018.
14 Interview conducted on May 25, 2018.
15 Interview conducted on May 23, 2018.
16 For a discussion on the background of village elections, see Epstein Citation1997; O'Brien and Li Citation2000.
17 Interview conducted on May 18, 2018.
18 Interview conducted on May 23, 2018.
19 Interview conducted on June 1, 2018.
20 Interview conducted on June 12, 2017
21 Interview conducted on May 12, 2017.
22 Interview conducted on May 12, 2017.
23 Interview conducted on May 13, 2017.
24 Interview conducted on June 1, 2017.
25 Interview conducted on June 12, 2017.
26 Interview conducted on June 12, 2017.
27 Interview conducted on May 3, 2017.
28 Interview conducted on May 25, 2018.
29 Interview conducted on May 25, 2018.
30 Interview conducted on May 15, 2018.
31 Interview conducted on June 2, 2017.
32 Interview conducted on May 23, 2018.
33 Interview conducted on June 6, 2018.
34 Interview conducted on June 6, 2018.
35 Interview conducted on June 13, 2018.
36 In the Mao era, grain quotas were the main form of state extraction.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Jingping Liu
Jingping Liu obtained her PhD degree in Political Science from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She is currently a post-doc at the Department of Geography and David C. Lam Institute for East–West Studies (LEWI), Hong Kong Baptist University. Her research focuses on rural politics in developing countries, particularly China.