From Authoritative Politics To Democratic Politics In Which Peasant Cooperatives Participate

Village committee election is an important part of rural governance.Though it has been signed into Constitution of the People's Republic of China since 1982,village committee election was not standardly carried out in nearly 30 years.The article explains the changes of village committee election with three elements--old system,environmental change and the movers--as main clue basing on the field survey data from several villages in the northwest region and using analytical framework of historical institutionalism.The government increased the burden of peasants by the drawing actions of collecting agricultural tax and charging a variety of fees.Strict family planning policy also sent a challenge to peasants' traditional concept of family.The local government set powerful agent in the villages in order to make the policies contraried to peasants' interests carry out smoothly.Then it formed authoritative politics in village and the village committee election existed nominally because it was not carried out in accordance with standard election process.At the same time,acquaintance community collapsed which was based on the relation of consanguinity and region in the village with involvement of political power.There is no motivation for county government continually setting up the agent in villages with environment changes of village election such as the cancellation of agricultural tax,the change of population policy as well as the awakening of peasants' rights and legal consciousness.County government plays the role of regulator and supervisor for the democratic election.Once authoritative politic played a leading role in rural governance,but now it declines in more normative election because all kinds of emerging forces are involved in rural governance.Peasant cooperative develops rapidly in the trend of industrialization of agriculture in recent years.The political demand of peasant cooperative to participate in rural governance appears as a legitimate formal organization in villages.Peasant cooperative has sufficient motivation and ability to participate in the election of village committee as a actor in environmental changes,consequently become the most prominent and active emerging force in promoting village democracy and reconstructing mutual trust and cooperation relations among villagers.In order to study deeply,we analysed the survey data from 12 provinces and cities of eastern,central and western regions throughout the country and found that the government's position on the village committee election from intervention turn to neutral and supervision,the members of peasant cooperatives as organized individuals are more active than non members in participating in village committee election due to peasants' cooperatives may bring economic income and social service,according to respectively empirical test and analysis of behavior of the government in village committee election and the members of peasant cooperatives vs non members in participating in village committee election.Verifying the changes of village committee election further in the aspect of data.