Abstract
Local people’s congresses have become increasingly active, carrying out legislative activities and (supposedly) supervising state organizations. Based on the analysis of bills submitted to Yangzhou Municipal People’s Congresses, we find that congress delegates have increasingly represented the interests and demands of the geographic areas from which they are elected, and that the local people’s congress has become a place to present and coordinate various competing interests, which are often contradictory to the interests of the local Party committee that represents the higher authority of the state. In other words, the local people’s congress has become a place where two interests intersect: the “central” interests represented by the local Party committee and the “local” interests represented by the local people’s congress delegates.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The data come from the Yangzhou MPC website: http://www.yzrd.gov.cn/index.asp.
In this sense, the interview method used in this article is different from the structured interview methods that follow the same questionnaire in every interview [5]. Instead the interviews used here are similar to those conducted by Hurst [6, 9], which “allowed interviewees to discuss issues and ideas that concerned them.”
A trade union is a CCP-sponsored labor union in China.
The revenue of the Jiangsu Sanxiao Group is far higher than the revenue of the Hangjiang District government, which was 628 million yuan in 2003. The data are from the 2003 Yangzhou official statistics: http://www.yzstats.gov.cn/gzsc/2003.
References
Brownlee, J. 2007. Authoritarianism in an age of democratization. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Chen, J., and B.J. Dickson. 2010. Allies of the state: China’s private entrepreneurs and democratic change. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Cho, Y.N. 2009. Local people’s congresses in China: Development and transition. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Gandhi, J. 2008. Political institutions under dictatorship. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Guthrie, D. 1999. Dragon in a three-piece suit: The emergence of capitalism in China. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Hurst, W. 2009. The Chinese worker after socialism. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kamo, Tomoki. 2006. Gendai Chūgoku seiji to jinmin daihyō taikai: Jindai no kinō kaikaku to “ryōdō/hi ryōdō” kankei no henka [Contemporary Chinese politics and people’s congresses: Reforms of people’s congresses and changes in the “guiding-guided” (lingdao–bei lingdao) relationship]. Tokyo: Keio University Press
Landry, P.F. 2008. Decentralized authoritarianism in China: The Communist Party’s control of local elites in the post-Mao era. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Levitsky, S., and L.A. Way. 2002. The rise of competitive authoritarianism. Journal of Democracy 13(2): 51–65.
Lust-Okar, E. 2005. Structuring conflict in the Arab world: Incumbents, opponents, and institutions. New York: Cambridge University Press.
MacFarquhar, R. 1998. Provincial people’s congresses. The China Quarterly 155: 656–667.
Magaloni, B. 2006. Voting for autocracy: Hegemonic party survival and its demise in Mexico. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Manion, M. 2008. When Communist Party candidates can lose, who wins? Assessing the role of local people’s congresses in the selection of leaders in China. The China Quarterly 195: 607–630.
Manion, M. 2011. Congresses with constituents, constituents without congresses: Representation for authoritarian rule in China. Unpublished manuscript. Madison: University of Wisconsin.
Mozaffar, S. 2002. Patterns of electoral governance in Africa’s emerging democracies. International Political Science Review 23(1): 85–101.
Nathan, A.J. 2003. Authoritarian resilience. Journal of Democracy 14(1): 6–17.
O’Brien, K.J. 1990. Is China’s National People’s Congress a “conservative” legislature? Asian Survey 30(8): 782–794.
O’Brien, K.J. 1990. Reform without liberalization: China’s national people’s congress and the politics of institutional change. New York: Cambridge University Press.
O’Brien, K.J. 1994. Agents and remonstrators: role accumulation by Chinese people’s congress deputies. The China Quarterly 138: 359–380.
O’Brien, K.J. 1994. Chinese people’s congresses and legislative embeddedness: Understanding early organizational development. Comparative Political Studies 27(1): 80–109.
O’Brien, K.J. 2009. Local people’s congresses and governing China. The China Journal 61: 131–141.
Shatz, E. 2006. Access by accident: legitimacy claims and democracy promotion in authoritarian Central Asia. International Political Science Review 27(3): 263–284.
Shedler, A. 2002. The menu of manipulation. Journal of Democracy 13(2): 36–50.
Tanner, M.S. 1999. The politics of lawmaking in China: Institutions, processes, and democratic prospects. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wright, T. 2010. Accepting authoritarianism: State-society relations in China’s reform era. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Xia, M. 2008. The people’s congresses and governance in China: Toward a network mode of governance. New York: Routledge.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Yuen Yuen Ang, Kevin O'Brien, and Vivian Zhan for their helpful comments. An earlier version of this analysis was presented at the annual meeting of the Association of Asian Studies, Toronto, Canada, March 2012.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kamo, T., Takeuchi, H. Representation and Local People’s Congresses in China: A Case Study of the Yangzhou Municipal People’s Congress. J OF CHIN POLIT SCI 18, 41–60 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11366-012-9226-y
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11366-012-9226-y