Effects Of Village Elections:from A Failed Candidate’s Perspective

In the traditional Chinese politics, power struggle is the game of "winners-take-all, losers-lose-all", after the late Qing Dynasty, Chinese traditional politics began to transform in the direction of modern democratic politics.Due to the restriction of historical and feudal habits as well as the actual political environment, Chinese democratic transition goes into an extremely difficult situation, in which the construction focuses on the superficial democratic form rather than the democratic substance, and the idea of democracy is still far from common people’s daily life. As the disintegration of people’s commune system, the autonomy of villagers began to rise and develop. However, after thirty years’practice, people still have divergent opinions about villagers’autonomy.By a detailed description of the village election process, this paper attempts to analyze the influence of democratic elections on the country society as well as Chinese politics, from the perspective of a failed candidate. Specifically, in using "incident process method", this paper has illustrated three election stories, showing how the country election process goes from "silent" to "white-hot", and revealing the real cause of familial election relay, from which we may grasp the significance of country elections on Chinese politics.This paper maintains that the democratic election is "grounded" in countryside society, village democracy is becoming mature and therefore, the villagers’democratic consciousness as well as their democratic ability has also been greatly promoted in the practice of democracy. On the whole, democratic election in countryside provides a peaceful mechanism of power transformation, breaking the rule of "winners-take-all, losers-lose-all" and surpassing the traditional Chinese politics.The full text divides into five chapters:The first chapter introduces the research background, research methods, as well as the basic situation of the object village (Guangyu).The second chapter describes the history and the meritocracy distribution of the object village (Guangyu) since "democracy enters village", and particularly it tells the story of the significant election in Guangyu in2008.The third chapter mainly tells the story that the failed candidates returned to take part in the village election, and it also gives a description of their family’s face-saving election relay.The fourth chapter describes the election contest between the candidates, and then it analyzes their behavioral logic and campaign strategy, revealing the deeper significance of the election process.The fifth chapter is the conclusion part.