Congressional Participation Of Deputies With Democratic Party Memberships

Since the 18^th National Congress of the Communist Party of China witnessed the shift of goals,the assertion that distributional justice can lend the legitimacy of the party-state has been continuously emphasized.The elements of democracy,the rule of law,participation and consultation inherent in the People’s Congress System and the Party System were hence further activated.These two major political systems have also become the driving forces of modernization and democratization.This research focuses on the local political practice of the representative system and the party system in China party-state.To study the political participation of deputies with democratic party memberships in the Local People’s Congress,I answer the following four questions:（1）Who are the deputies with democratic party memberships?（2）Are there any differences of their congressional participation modes compared to other deputies with Chinese Communist Party membership and others without party memberships?（3）Does the party membership significantly affect the congressional participation of deputies?This article first describes and analyzes the structure of party memberships of deputies from the first to fourteenth Municipal People’s Congress in Wuhan,and finds that deputies with democratic party membership account for about 10%.Then,employing the biographical information of the tenth and eleventh Municipal People’s Congress in Wuhan,I analyze the descriptive representation of deputies with party memberships.The results show that:（1）Deputies with democratic party memberships are relatively young and highly educated,and they are more likely to be female.（2）They are more likely to be intellectuals and leaders of democratic parties.At the same time,deputies with Communist Party membership are more likely to be“daimao”,government leaders,and state-owned enterprise leaders.（3）Deputies with democratic party memberships are typically from constituencies without parochial underrepresentation,and more likely to have accumulated experience in congressional participation.In terms of substantive representation,I find that democratic party memberships have a significant effect on representation modes,including advocating municipal interests,demanding allocation and providing policy alternatives.To further test the hypothesis that democratic party memberships can significantly influence congressional participation,I apply pooled OLS,between effect model and random effect model to the three samples respectively.I match the congressional productivity dataset from the 10^th and the 11^th Municipal People’s Congress and the biographical dataset of deputies who serve in the 10^th MPC（1998-2002）and the 11^thMPC（2003-2006）respectively to produce the two samples.After controlling the demographic variables,occupational variables,congressional experience,and delegation size,and constituency size,I find democratic party memberships have a significant effect on congressional participation.This study provides some empirical evidence about party memberships and congressional participation.The results have some implications on an essential answer in the congressional study:whether descriptive representation can be translated into substantive representation.Besides,this study explores the local practice of the People’s Congress System and the Party System in China,which proposes a tentative agenda for future research.