15. The Changing Institutional Space Regarding Roles and Behavior of Village Leaders: An Evolution from Villagers’ Autonomy to the Power List

It is worth noting that there exist enormous distinctions in Chinese rural areas. Resources also vary from village to village. Due to this basic condition in China, we cannot make a generalized analysis of village leaders. This chapter focuses on village leaders in coastal regions or relatively economically dynamic villages with abundant resources. The institutional space of village leaders’ behavior embraces two factors: changes in the roles of village leaders and behavioral norms. Their roles should not only be brought into full play but also be checked and harnessed.

“Village cadres” and “village leaders” can be used interchangeably.

The term “village cadres” is said to have made its first appearance while Yan Xishan promoted the construction of the village system. See Yan Xishan Established Village Leadership System by Wang Zhai. Senior Citizens in Shanxi (2013).

In the 1920s, Yan Xishan, who returned to China from Japan, promoted the construction of the village system in Shanxi Province. On the basis of Japan’s village system and China’s ancient system, the village became the grassroots unit. See Li Maosheng (2010), The Biography of Yan Xishan (p. 223), Shanxi People’s Press.

There are substantial differences in terms of the establishment of villages in South China and North China. The unified establishment of village organizations was completed during the process of the collectivization of villages. During the period of cooperatives, village leaders were incorporated in the people’s commune system. Traditional villages were transformed into production brigade. After the collapse of the people’s commune system, the production brigade was converted into an administrative village. The villagers’ committee was set up on the previous production brigade. The term “village cadres” was put on the historical stage again. In the 1980s and 1990s, the term “village cadres” was commonly used in government documents.

Party branches, general party branches, or party committees may be established depending on the situation of the village or the number of Party members in the village. In most cases, party branches are set up in villages.

The term “cadre” was introduced in China from outside. In the history of the Communist Party of China (CPC), it first appeared in the Party Chart by its 2nd National Congress in 1922. A cadre is a person who holds a public post in this context. In the current time, anyone who plays a crucial role and fulfills administrative roles in national organs, organizations, or public groups is dubbed as a “cadre.” Wang Zhengbing and Fu Yongmin (2009). Research into Village Leaders (p. 30). China Agriculture Press.

If only one person acts as the leader in both the villagers’ committee and the party branch committee in a village, he will definitely be the political core of the village.

Village leaders are not included in the official staffing system, nor do they live on national finance. During the period of the people’s communes, the income of village leaders was paid in the form of subsidies for the loss of working time. Since the reform and opening-up, their salaries have been paid out of the revenues of the collective economy. At present, township government has undertaken their salaries in different degrees. However, village leaders are not civil servants; rather, their identity remains to be farmers. In the urban-rural residence permit (Hukou) system, they hold the agricultural residence registration.

Aside from administrative power and political leadership, the village, as a common living community, has its own affairs as a self-governing agency. There are also many village affairs within the village. Though they have nothing to do with state authority, they are intimately tied to communal life. Thus, in order to distinguish the two, the former is referred to as state authority, the latter is referred to as public influence of a village.

Debate over elite replacement and elite transformation.

He Xuefeng (2015). Incomes of Village Leaders and Professionalization. Social Governance Review, 11. Although there is a degree of overlap between the agent and the egoist, the logic of the distinction is different. The concept of the egoist stems from the application of the rational man in economics, while the concept of the agent derives from dichotomy in social sciences—the relationship between the structure and the agent. In practice, the agent can be either an egoist or an altruist depending on different variables of behavioral constraint.

If brigade leaders during the people’s commune period were a relatively identical group, the development of different rural areas in China since the reform and opening-up has shown remarkable differences. The concept of administrative villages remains unchanged, but the connotation of villages has changed dramatically. Some villages become empty with a lot of villagers migrating to urban areas for job opportunities, whereas there is a huge wave of population into other villages where floating people even outnumber permanent residents. Against this backdrop, “village leaders” in different localities are endowed with completely different connotations: the political ecology in villages is varied and numerous, including the able, the rich and the intelligent, villains, criminal forces, loafers, and the “intermediate farmer.”

Besides these two relationships, there are another two relationships: the relationship between the state and citizens (the direct relationship between the state and citizens is emblematic of a modern nation) and the relationship between the Party and the masses (the political leadership of the party branch in a village is deduced from this relationship). These four relationships intersect on the suture line.

In the structure of state institutions, the Constitution sets up the government at five levels: the Central government, provincial government or government in autonomous regions or municipalities directly under the Central government, municipal government, county government, and township government. Under the township government is the administrative village where villagers conduct self-governance. The organizational border between governments and villages is crystal clear, but the functional boundary of government is beyond the organization border. It is up to village leaders to tackle many governmental affairs. How to deal with this relationship has become a fundamental issue in China’s grassroots politics. The Report to the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed that “to bring about effective connection and beneficial interaction between government administration and primary-level self-governance.” The Report to the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China advocated that “Community-level organizations of various types should also get involved to integrate government administration and community-level democracy.”

In an article entitled “Why is there no fixed rule in counties?” the author offers an impressive statement about local officials: in their actual political careers, county-level officials often deal with three types of responsibilities consciously or unconsciously. They are responsible to the upper-level government primarily by implementing Party and state policies, laws and rules, protecting overall benefits, and fulfilling the particular demands of superiors; they are responsible to the lower-level government by safeguarding local public interests and the interests of local residents or units; and they are responsible to themselves in protecting their own political achievement, reputation, future development, and safety. Most officials seek to strike a balance among these three and pinpoint their own target. The key indicators of losses and profits vary dramatically from official to official, but they share two common things. First, they wish to make the maximum achievement and yield the maximum fruits at the expense of minimum costs. The bottom line is that the balance of losses and gains should be reached. Second, they should do what they should do, deal with things by rule and conflate legitimate administration with flexible and bold practice so as to maximize achievement. In fact, if county officials are supplanted by village leaders in the abovementioned text, this viewpoint still holds true despite the fact that village leaders are not in a real sense officials.

While tackling some tricky problems, the township government may have to rely on villains to govern a village. In order to fulfill tasks, the township government has no other alternative but to appoint some “tough” people as village leaders and give them tacit consent to seek for some benefits and adopt some “hard” measures. The reliance of township government on some powerful people or even villains to settle problems has brought about a myriad of political and social problems, thereby leading to the aggravation of the conflicts between leaders and the masses. The relationship between the township government and village leaders is a dynamic and changing process.

There exist considerable controversies in academia in this aspect. Some scholars contend that elections do indeed produce an impact on the behavior of village leaders and make them more concerned about the voice of villagers in their behavioral model. See M. Manion (2006). However, more Chinese scholars do not think elections produce such an immense impact and that the problem with postelections still exists. More importantly, officials in the township government have learned how to manage the election procedure and control the variables of elections, thus reducing the possibility of the “black horse” in elections. In addition, the Central government has increasingly stressed that the pivotal role of grassroots Party organizations in rural areas should be brought into full play in recent years, which has weakened the role of election variables in rural politics.

He (2007) pointed out that “there are two conditions for the smooth operation of the supervisory committee of village affairs in Houchen Village: the collective revenues of the village and the influx of resources.”

In primary-level governance, strengthening the control of the township government over village leaders is an extremely realistic problem. Township officials are changing very frequently, whereas the chief of the village party branch tends to hold his post for a long time. Therefore, when young township officials command senior Party chiefs, they will encounter some barriers. When university graduates are appointed as the township head of the secretary of the township Party committee, it is far from a sure thing as to whether village leaders will obey them. How to control village leaders is, thus, a complicated matter.

Some scholars attempt to interpret this phenomenon from the perspective of the principle of checks and balances, regarding the party branch, the villagers’ committee, and the supervisory committee of village affairs as three core branches.