![Sample our Social Sciences journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110822/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Social-Sciences.jpg"})
Abstract
Political representation centers on who claims to represent what and the extent to which the audience feels being represented. The mainstream body of scholarship on political representation has focused on electoral-based representation in the context of liberal-democratic settings. China provides an excellent case to study the phenomenon of non-electoral forms of political representation. This article seeks to address the question of how do the Chinese authorities enhance political representation by public deliberation in social welfare policy? Drawing on first-hand official documents and interview accounts from fieldwork conducted in Guangxi and Hubei, as well as secondary data sources, this article undertakes a mechanism-based comparative case study of these two localities, examining the different forms of citizen deliberation in poverty alleviation programs. It reveals that the party regime has developed an increasingly sophisticated set of strategies in establishing representation by deliberative consultation. Furthermore, two distinctive forms of deliberative representation, the state-authoritative model and the light-empowered model can be discerned from the different deliberative participatory experiences of Guangxi and Hubei. The deliberative elements introduced into the poverty alleviation program demonstrate that with a deeper and more consequential engagement of the citizens in welfare policy decision making, there can be an empowered form of political representation generated even in a non-electoral setting.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Schmitter, “Crisis and Mutation in the Institutions,” 323–338; Schmitter, “Real-Existing’ Democracy and Its Discontents,” 149–163; Mansbridge, “Representation, Legitimacy, and Innovation,” 299–322; Parsons and Weber, “Parties, Pluralism and the “Crisis” in American Representation,” 200–220; Pasquino, “The Ideal of Western Liberal Democracy,” 238–254; Peruzzotti, “Post-Liberal and Post-Populist Democracy,” 221–237; Roberts, “Crises of Representation and Populist Challenges,” 188–199; Scholte, “After Liberal Global Democracy,” 67–92.
2 Saward, “The Representative Claim,” 297–318.
3 Sieyès, Political Writings.
4 Vieira and Runciman, Representation.
5 The delegate model is one where the representatives follow the preferences and interests of their constituents who possess no autonomy to act otherwise; Dovi, “Political Representation”. In the trustee model, representatives have the ability to act according to what they considered to be the best interests of their constituents.
6 Brown, “Survey Article: Citizen Panels,” 206–207
7 Manion, “Authoritarian Parochialism,” 311–338.
8 Pitkin, The Concept of Representation, 209.
9 Pitkin, The Concept of Representation; Urbinati and Warren, “The Concept of Representation,” 387–412.
10 Mansbridge, “Rethinking Representation,” 515–528.
11 Despite the fact that ‘surrogate’ representation may be referring to representation of constituents outside of the elected representatives’ own districts in this new form of representation that produces an indirect electoral representative relationship, Mansbridge’s (2003) account of a new representative innovation in this sense still does not depart from the electoral premise; see note 10 above.
12 Mansbridge, “Clarifying the Concept of Representation,” 621–630.
13 Brown, “Deliberation and Representation”; Kuyper, “Systemic Representation,” 308–324.
14 Disch, “Toward a Mobilization Conception,” 100–114.
15 Kuyper, “Systemic Representation,” 308–324.
16 Saward, The Representative Claim.
17 Näsström, “Democratic Representation Beyond Election,” 1–12.
18 See note 16 above.
19 Disch, “The “Constructivist Turn”,” 487–499.
20 Almeida, “The Constructivist Turn in Political Representation,” 339–356.
21 Urbinati and Warren, “The Concept of Representation,” 387–412.
22 This refers to the revolutionaries, NGOs, interest groups, etc. These unelected representatives perform claim making on the behalf of perceived preferences and interests of constituents who did not elect them, at the same time also raising problematic issues pertaining to democratic legitimacy; Montanaro, “The Democratic Legitimacy,” 1094–1107. Good intentions aside, such unorthodox representatives run the risk of manipulation that could end up undermining the genuine preferences of their purported constituencies.
23 Dryzek and Niemeyer, “Discursive Representation,” 481–493.
24 Bohman, “Representation in the Deliberative System,” 76.
25 Brown, “Survey Article: Citizen Panels,” 203–225; Escobar and Elstub, “Forms of Mini-Publics”.
26 Brown, “Deliberation and Representation,” 176.
27 Maia, “Non-Electoral Political Representation,” 429–443.
28 Pitkin, “Representation and Democracy,” 335–342.
29 Pitkin, The Concept of Representation.
30 Saward, “Representation and Democracy,” 1000–1013.
31 Pitkin, “Representation and Democracy,” 336.
32 Rehfeld, “Towards a General Theory,” 1–21.
33 Heberer and Shpakovskaya, “The Digital Turn”; Heberer, “Representation in a Context,” 339–361; Sintomer and Zhou, “‘Representation’ and Dàibiǎo,” 362–389; Wang, “Engineering Representation,” 371–393.
34 He and Thøgersen, “Giving the People a Voice?,” 675–692.
35 See note 21 above.
36 Tsang, “Consultative Leninism,” 865–880.
37 Lieberthal, Governing China.
38 Dickson, The Dictator’s Dilemma.
39 Tang, Populist Authoritarianism.
40 CPC Central Committee, Decision of the Central Committee.
41 He, “Participatory and Deliberative Institutions,” 175–196.
42 Xiaojun and Ge, “Participatory Policy Making,” 215–234.
43 See note 16 above.
44 Urbinati, Representative Democracy.
45 See note 2 above.
46 Brown (2018) had further remarked on the importance to discern that the legitimacy of representative claims does not preclude that they can also be non-democratic, such as the example he raised on the UN accepting representatives of non-democratic countries; see note 13 above.
47 See note 13 above.
48 Fung, “Varieties of Participation,” 66–75.
49 Tang and Dryzek, “Introduction: The Continuing Search,” 109–114.
50 Woo, “Participatory Budgeting with Chinese Characteristics”.
51 Habermas et al., The Theory of Communicative Action.
52 Gutmann and Thompson, Why Deliberative Democracy?
53 Rosenberg, Types of Democratic Deliberation.
54 Fishkin et al., “Deliberative Democracy,” 435–448.
55 Bächtiger et al., The Oxford Handbook.
56 Sartori, “Concept Misformation,” 1033–1053.
57 Steiner, “Concept Stretching,” 186–190.
58 He and Warren, “Authoritarian Deliberation” 269–289; He and Wagenaar, “Authoritarian Deliberation Revisited,” 622–629.
59 Mansbridge, Everyday Talk; Bãchtiger et al., “Disentangling Diversity,” 32–63.
60 Type I deliberation is a more parsimonious conception most prevalent in the early phrase of deliberative theory that focuses on a narrow and overly rationalistic idea of what the deliberative ideals are. As this conceptualization of deliberation is deemed to be too demanding and unrealistic, deliberative scholars (see Mansbridge, Everyday Talk; Dryzek, “Deliberative Democracy,” 23–35) tried to expand the conception of deliberation to consider other forms of communication (anecdotes, story-telling, etc.) that are then classified as type II deliberation; Bãchtiger et al., “Disentangling Diversity,” 32–63; Mansbridge, Everyday Talk.
61 Kornreich, Vertinsky, and Potter. “Consultation and Deliberation,” 176–203.
62 See note 48 above.
63 For the merits of case studies, see George and Bennett, Case Studies .
64 We had rare access to a large amount of internal archival material that documented the whole process.
65 Schoenhals, Doing Things with Words.
66 The fieldwork was carried out in Guangxi in January 2018, January 2019 and August 2019, with follow-up online interviews with local officials.
67 We are grateful to our research team in Hubei province for sharing a lot of fieldwork data.
68 The fieldwork was carried out in Shaanxi in January 2019 and Yunnan in August 2019.
69 This has been mentioned in the quote from the CPC party, see http://www.gov.cn/zhuanti/2017-10/18/content_5232655.htm. In particular, the important utility of Socialist deliberative democracy has been emphasized, where the ability for the people to discuss and deliberate is highlighted, also as a true essence of people’s democracy. However, deliberative democracy is deemed as a way to realize party leader leadership and is a special form and unique advantage of China’s Socialist democratic politics (original Chinese: 发挥社会主义协商民主重要作用。有事好商量, 众人的事情由众人商量, 是人民民主的真谛。协商民主是实现党的领导的重要方式, 是我国社会主义民主政治的特有形式和独特优势。)
70 See note 49 above; He and Warren, “Authoritarian Deliberation” 269–289; Lo, “Decoding Xieshang Minzhu”.
71 Zhong and Mol. “Participatory Environmental Governance,” 899–913; Ergenc, “Political Efficacy,” 191–213; He, ““Orderly Political Participation” in China”.
72 For more details on targeted poverty alleviation process in China, see Qingjie, “Managed Campaign,” 400–415; Cai, Qingjie, and Zhongyuan, A Farewell to Poverty; Wen-Hsuan and Xingmiu, “Mobilizing Cadre Incentives,” 45–67.
73 For original source, see http://fgk.mof.gov.cn/law/getOneLawInfoAction.do?law_id=84187 (accessed on Feb 28, 2019).
74 See “Decision of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Winning the Tough Battle against Poverty”, issued on December 29, 2015.
75 The government has carried out several large-scale medium- and long-term poverty reduction programs across the country, including the Seven-Year Program for Lifting 80 Million People Out of Poverty (1994–2000) and the Outline for Development-Oriented Poverty Alleviation for China's Rural Areas (2001–2010).
76 “Implementation Plans on Accurate Identification of Poor Households and Impoverished Villages in Guangxi”, issued by Guangxi provincial government in October, 2015.
77 The maximum score that can be attained for all of these categories is 100 points. These categories include housing, appliances, agricultural machinery, motor vehicle, drinking waters, electricity, road situation, health condition, education, labor force, migrant worker, land poverty, agriculture and animal husbandry, and crop farming.
78 ‘Guanxi’ refers to social relationships, often clientelistic practices in China’s case. See Bian, Guanxi, How China Works.
79 Interviews with eleven senior cadres in six different counties in Guangxi Province.
80 Records of the poverty identification households and details are archived in each of the designated poverty villages.
81 Interviews with twelve villagers in B county, three villagers in D county, and eight villagers M county all confirmed that post-survey deliberative meetings help provide additional information to double-check and verify the real situations of candidate households.
82 During the fieldwork, we happened to meet three petitioners at L township, D county in Guangxi, who attempted to pressure the township government to reevaluate the poverty identification result in their village.
83 These participants comprise current village cadres, retired cadres residing in the village, elderly party members, party members, congressional members, women representatives, and village group leaders.
84 Sometimes in the first round of review, cadres and village groups will attempt to cover up for the members of the group, or conceal certain facts. This will usually be exposed in the second round of review because of the involvement of the first party secretary or special working group that are assigned from the higher-level authorities to scrutinize the process. For example, we have been informed by at least four first secretaries we met in Guangxi who have exposed such wrongdoings. What happened in one case was the village group leader had rated himself as a poor household even though he was not according to his eligibility.
85 Interviews with township officials at D county, H county, M county in Guangxi.
86 Interviews with four villagers in T township, B county in Guangxi. Interviews with two villagers in L township, H county in Guangxi.
87 Internal documents on anti-corruption in poverty relief programs offered by the Political and Legal Affairs Commission of K township.
88 Interviews with village cadres in H county and D county in Guangxi.
89 Interviews with township heads at D county, H county, M county, X county in Guangxi.
90 Formalism here is translated from the Chinese term, 形式主义 and the closest explanation could be to refer to ideas, such as lip service and window dressing, undertaking superficial and limited efforts to achieve an outcome that appeases important parties involved.
91 Interviews with five villagers in B county, two villagers in D county, two villagers in H county, and three villagers M county.
92 Interview with a first party secretory sent from the provincial-level government at M county in Guangxi.
93 See ‘Implementation plans of identifying and registering the impoverished population in Hubei Province,’ issued by the provincial government of Hubei in 2014.
94 See the ‘Organic Law of the Villagers' Committees of the People's Republic of China.’
95 Interview with a first party secretory and a work team leader at H village, B County in Hubei.
96 Our national-wide sampling survey shows that 83% villagers and 95.8% village cadres believed that the new deliberative process has accurately identified the population most in need of assistance. The survey was conducted in Gansu, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Heilongjiang, Hubei, Hunan, Guangxi, Yunnan, Sichuan, and Guizhou provinces over the summer of 2019. In total, 1340 villagers and 315 village cadres were surveyed in the project.
97 Interviews with county-level officials in Guangxi, Shaanxi, and Yunnan provinces.
98 Heberer and Shpakovskaya, “The Digital Turn”.
99 Gore, “The Communist Party-Dominated Governance,” 161–194.
100 Nathan, “Authoritarian Resilience,” 6–17.
101 Chen and Xu. “On Deliberative Authoritarian Governance”.
102 See note 2 above.
103 See note 32 above.
104 Tanner, “China Rethinks Unrest,” 137–156; Tong and Lei. “Large-Scale Mass Incidents,” 487–508.
105 Distelhorst, “Book Review: Rory Truex,” 361–364.
106 Qiaoan and Teets, “Responsive Authoritarianism in China,” 139–153.
107 See note 100 above.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Zhongyuan Wang
Zhongyuan Wang is assistant professor and research fellow at the Fudan Institute for Advanced Study in Social Sciences (IAS-Fudan). He received his doctoral degree at Leiden University and had worked as a lecturer in the Program of International Studies at Leiden University. His research interests include comparative political institutions, election studies, political representation, local politics and governance, and governmental big data. His work has appeared in European Political Science, Journal of Contemporary China, Asian Survey, Journal of Chinese Political Science, and China Information. He currently serves as the Deputy Director of Contemporary China Research Center at Fudan University.
Su Yun Woo
Su Yun Woo is postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Political Science, University of Zurich, at the Chair of Democracy and Public Governance. She received her doctoral degree at the University of Zurich in 2020. Her research interests include deliberative governance, democratic innovations, China studies, urban governance, Chinese foreign policy, as well as citizen participation. She is currently involved in a preliminary survey study of Chinese perception on the EU, an external research project investigating the topic of Right to the City in 4 Asian countries supported by Instituto Polis (Brazil), as well as engages in research collaboration with a Chinese non-profit organisation ‘Social Equity and Participation Center’ on citizenship participation. Her work has appeared in International Review of Administrative Sciences and Politische Vierteljahresschrift.