Grassroots Governance in Rural China Before China’s Reform and Opening Up

Abstract

This paper discusses the mechanisms through which the Chinese state extracted resources from the countryside during two important historical periods before China’s reform and opening up: China’s rural governance in the first half of the twentieth century before the founding of the People’s Republic of China and the people’s commune system after the founding of the People’s Republic. The first period saw severe state involution in grassroots organisations due to an inability of the state to supervise grassroots governments and cost-ineffective state institutions dealing with China’s very large rural population. In the second period, an integration of government administration and commune management in the people’s commune enabled an effective organization of the peasantry, efficient resource extraction, and largely successful regime building. The commune system was abolished in the 1980s and the state has since pulled back from rural grassroots organisations. However, a rural governance crisis occurring again in the 1990s as a result of misguided rural policies, reminds us of the importance of a more comprehensive understanding of historical rural governance practices and their underpinning mechanisms in the twentieth century.