Why Do People Vote in Semicompetitive Elections in China

8/12/2019 Why Do People Vote in Semicompetitive Elections in China

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Southern Political Science Association

Why Do People Vote in Semicompetitive Elections in China?Author(s): Jie Chen and Yang ZhongSource: The Journal of Politics, Vol. 64, No. 1 (Feb., 2002), pp. 178-197Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Southern Political ScienceAssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2691670

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3/21

Why

Do

People Vote

in

Semicompetitive

Elections in China? 179

and 1999a). Thus, some China scholars consider these local elections to be

only semicompetitive Shi 1999a, 1118).

Since the promulgationof the new electoral law, many Chinese citizens have

voted in such

semicompetitiveelections. But why do people vote in these local

elections that are considered,

at best,

to

be semicompetitive? What subjective

orientations motivate Chinesepeople to go to the voting booth? The answers to

these

questions have a lot

to

do with an understandingof the nature of the

currentelectoral system in

China,

and hence with the

prediction

of

significant

effects

of the

system

on

sociopolitical development.

To

address these critical questions, Tianjian Shi has submitted (1999a) im-

portant findings about Chinese voters'

subjective

motivations in

semicompeti-

tive elections. From a

nationwide survey conducted between December 1990

and

January 1991,

Shi

finds that those who

support democracy

and democrati-

zation,

who

strongly

believe in

their

own

competence

to understand

and

influ-

ence

politics (i.e., internalefficacy),and who want

to

see corrupt eaderspunished

tend to vote in such semicompetitive elections as those for local people's con-

gresses. Therefore, Shi

concludes that people vote in semicompetitive election

. .

.

not because

they

are identified with the

regime,

and not because

they

have

affective

attachmentsto

political authority 1999a, 1135). Instead, they

vote

in

those elections to pursue their own interests: to punish corrupt leaders and

to pursue democratic values

(1999a, 1129).

But the results from our

sample survey

conducted

in

the

Beijing

area

(Bei-

jing dicu)

in

1995

(see Appendix)

either

directly

contradict or

significantly

differ from Shi's

findings about

the

relationships

between

voting

and

subjective

orientations, although

the voter turnout rate in our

survey

is

very

similar to

(slightly

lower

than)

that

in Shi's

survey (see

Table

1).

On the one

hand,

we

find that people with stronger democratic orientation and a keener sense of

internal

efficacy

are

less likely

to

vote in such

semicompetitive

elections as

those for local

people's congresses.

On the

other hand,

we find that those who

are

identified

with

the regime and have affective attachments

to the political

authority

are more

likely

to

vote in

those elections.

TABLE 1

Voter

Turnout Rates

of the Two

Samples

Beijing Survey,

1995

China

Survey,

1990-1991

Category

%

(N)

%

(N)

Voted

58.5

(385)

61.6

(1,477)

Didn't

vote 40.1

(264)

37.7

(904)

Don't remember

1.4

(9)

.8

(18)

Total 100

(658)

100.1

(2,399)

Note: The

figures

for

China

Survey,

1990-1991 come

from

Shi

(1999a, 1123).


4/21

180

Jie

Chen

and YangZhong

In order to supplement

and

improve our current understanding of voters'

subjectivemotivations

in

semicompetitive elections

in

China, we reexamine the

important ssues that Shi has tackled. In this reexamination, we present and

analyze those significant

contradictionsbetween our findings and those of Shi.

Specifically, we first discuss the nature and

salient characteristics

of

local peo-

ple's congress elections that we

believe are crucial for us to understandvoters'

attitudes and behaviors, then we presentthe

results from

our

tests of Shi's key

hypotheses about

the

effects of voters'

subjective

motivations on their

voting

behavior, and finally we draw some theoretical implications from the differ-

ences between our findings and Shi's.

Our analysis here differs from Shi's

study (1999a)

in certain

respects,

and

hence it does not replicate his study.

First,

in

terms of

the

scope of substantive

issues, while Shi's study deals with

voting behavior in both noncompetitive and

semicompetitive elections, this analysis focuses on voters' behaviors in

only

semicompetitive elections-local people's

congress

elections.

Second,

with re-

gard

to

the

type

of

empirical evidence,

while our

data

come from

a

single

lo-

cale,

the

Beijing area (including both urban

and rural

sections),2 Shi's

data

are

from a nationwide survey. Although we cannot fully reproduceShi's analysis

due to

the

difference between the

two

data

sets,

we

are

able to offer a

more

in-depth analysis of

the

relevanthypotheses

in

the Beijing area.

This

is

because

our sample was designed to be representativeof this

politically important

lo-

cale, and,

in turn, our

analysis

can

supplement

our

understanding

of the

impor-

tant

issues dealt with by those hypotheses.3Finally,

with

respect to questionnaire

construction,while

most

of

the

questions

used

in

this

analysis

are

very

similar

to

those used

in

Shi's

analysis,

none of

the

questions

in these

two

analyses

is

exactly

the same in their

approaches,

wordings,

and scales. But

in

essence,

the

questions employed

in

this study

are

certainly

valid for

measuring

the

same

concepts as those analyzed

in

Shi's

study.

In

sum, despite

these differences

between

Shi's

and our

analyses,

we believe

that

our

analysis

can make

signifi-

cant contributions

o

the

study

of the

same

important

ssues

by reexamining

the

major propositions

and

findings put

forth in

Shi's

study.

The

CCP's

Constraints

and

Voters' Choices

in

Local People's Congress

Elections

We do not

disagree

with

Shi

(1999a, 1116-18)

that

the

post-Mao

electoral

partial

reforms have

significantly

liberalized such local

people's congress

elec-

2Our sample site, the Beijing area, consists

of

8 urban

or

suburban

districts

and

10

rural

coun-

ties or districts (see also Beijing Statistical Bureau 1996, 20).

'To reexamine mportant ssues and findings on mass support

or

political and

economic

change

in the former USSR, similarly, Arthur Miller and his associates (see Miller, Hesli and Reisinger,

1994) compared their findings from the data collected from three former Soviet republics with

those of Finifter and Mickiewicz (1992) that were collected from a survey of the

entire former

USSR.


5/21

Why

Do

People

Vote in

Semicompetitive

Elections

in

China?

181

tions (which Shi and others characterize as semicompetitive elections ), as

citizens now, for example, can nominate candidates and have a choice among

multiple candidates for each contested

position,

and

as some candidates, occa-

sionally, indirectly express their

own views on specific policy issues (or low-

politics issues).4 Nonetheless, in

order to reassess the issues in debate, we

need

to

have a

more adequate

understanding

of both CCP's constraints and

voters'

choices

in these elections, which have all served as today's electoral

environmentunder which voters operate.

CCP's Constraints

The fundamentalmotive of the

CCP leadership to reform the electoral rules

of

people's congresses

and

to maintain the new

rules

has been

twofold. First,

the

CCP leadership

intended

to regain and reinforce the

legitimacy

of its

one-

party rule through the liberalized yet limited local elections (e.g., McCormick

1996, 31; O'Brien 1990, 126; Shi 1999a, 1116). By allowing people to elect

deputies directly to

the

lowest level of

people's congresses,

the

post-Mao

lead-

ers

expected

to create an

image

of the

government's representativeness mong

the

citizens

(McCormick 1996).

Consequently,

the

enhanced

legitimacy

was

supposed

to

help the CCP maintain political stability

in the

society. Only

secondly,

these

electoral reforms were also intended to

heighten

the

efficiency

of the

government(O'Brien 1990,

126), ideally

as the

popularly

lected

dep-

uties act on

behalf

of their constituencies to advocate sensible

policies

and

stop

unpopulargovernmental

decisions at various levels

of

legislatures.

Whetherand

how well this second

objective

has been

achieved through

the

local elections

remains unclear. But

it

must be noted that since the outset of the electoral

reforms, the CCP leaders have

always linked

this

objective

to

their ultimate

political goal: strengthening

the

legitimacy

of the

party leadership (dangde

lingdao) (see e.g.,

Archive

Research Office

1994).

In

short,

it is

very

clear that

all

these

limited

electoral reforms

were

mainly

intended

by

the

ruling party,

the

CCP,

o

strengthen

ts own

legitimacy

by improving

ts own

governability,

rather

than

to

initiate

democratic competitionacross political and ideological divides.

Out of this fundamentalmotive and with its

unchallengeableruling position,

the

CCP leaderships (from Deng

Xiaoping

to

Jiang Zeming)

have

firmly

im-

posed

at least two formidable constraints on

the

partially

reformed

local

peo-

ple's congress elections. One is political constraint.

In order

to

prevent any

organized

and individual

oppositions

from

challenging

its

position

of absolute

rule,

the CCP

has

directly

or

indirectly

controlled

virtually

the entire

process

of

local

people's congress elections:

from

nomination

of

candidates,

to electorate

deliberation,

o the determinationof

final

candidateson the

ballot

(Burns 1999,

591; Halpern 1991, 38).

Such

political

control

has been done

mainly through

'For more detailed discussions on the post-Mao electoral reforms, also see works by Nathan

(1985), Burns (1988), O'Brien (1990, 1994a, 1994b), and McCormick (1996).


6/21

182

Jie Chen and YangZhong

the party-dominated, ocal

election committees (Shi and Lei 1999, 21-23). These

committees also control the

final results of the elections via the

so-called three

ups

and three downs

procedure5

in

which the local party

leaderships

eventu-

ally get the voters' consent

for the final candidates placed on the ballot-

most of whom are either

party members or at least obedient to

the party line

(McCormick 1996). Furthermore,no opposition parties or

organizations are

allowed in these elections,

although the so-called democraticparties hathave

long been co-opted by the

CCP may participate in the elections that serve as

showcases of democracywith the Chinese characteristics. As a

result,

with

few

exceptions,6 people'scongress deputiesaremainly politically reliable cad-

res, intellectuals, workers,peasants, and minority representatives

who accept

the

contour of

the

regime

(O'Brien 1994b, 85). Actually,

the

great majority

(about 75%-80%)

of

the winning candidatesare members of the CCP

(McCor-

mick 1996, 39; Wang 1998, 190).7 Thus, under the CCP's tight

political con-

trol, these elections rarelychallenge party power or government

decisions

(O'Brien 1994b, 85).

The other constraint

mposed by

the CCP in these

elections is

an

ideological

one.

The

CCP has

designed

and

implemented

a list of measures

in

order to

preventthe local people's

congress

elections

from becoming

a

forum

spreading

bourgeois

iberal

thoughts

or

political views contrary

to the official

ideology

(Shi 1999b, 395).8

First of

all,

the

party prohibits any large-scale

or

publi-

cized electoral campaign that is consideredpartof bourgeois

democracy as

opposed

to socialist

democracy ),

and

it

requires

that all electoral activities

and deliberationsbe carried out within a limited

scope (e.g.,

work unit or dan-

wei)

under firm control

by

the

party-dominated

election

committee

(Shi

and

Lei 1999; Wang 1998). By

doing so,

the CCP has almost eliminated

any

effec-

tive

channels

for

potential dissidents to articulate

their

dissenting opinions

in

such local elections.

Consequently,

as McCormick

observed,

with the

excep-

tion of

a few isolated cases,

.

.

. candidates [could not] campaign in the usual

sense of that

word,

and

they

could

typically give only

a

few-minute-long

self-

introductionstating mainly

that they

were

the sort of persons recommended

n

5In this procedure,the initial lists of nominees generated from electorate deliberations are sub-

mitted to the local election committees, considered and returnedback to the electors, who further

deliberate and then pass the list back up to the election committees, and so forth for threeups and

three downs (McCormick 1996, 40).

6In

his recent works, Shi has noted these exceptions by citing two famous cases of two prince-

lings, Chen Yuan and Chen Haosu, who lost in their local elections (see Shi 1997, 36; Shi 1999a,

note 6, 1120). But, as other China analysts argue (e.g. O'Brien 1994b, 85; McCormick 1996, 39;

Nathan 1997, 235), these exceptions still remain exceptions after all and have not yet led to a

fundamental or qualitative) change in the political orientation of winning candidates as a

whole.

7For

example, the results of

the

local people's congress

elections

in

1993

indicated that a

little

over

80%

of the

winning

candidates were CCP members

(Wang 1998, 190).

8Shi also notes

that

electoral reforms adopted

in

1979

enlivened elections

for local

people's

congresses

but did not

signal

a

change

in the official

ideology,

which

is

hostile to free

expression

and, more important, o popular sovereignty (1999b, 395).


7/21

Why Do People

Vote in

Semicompetitive

Elections in China? 183

the official guidelines (McCormick 1996,

41). Not only has the CCP severely

limited the scope and format of electoral

activities and deliberations, it has

made relentless efforts to control the substance of the activities and delibera-

tions in order to make sure that no

political view contraryto CCP's four car-

dinal

principles 9 neaks nto the local elections.

Especially

since the

inconvenient

appearances of a few non-Marxist

candidates (who strongly advocated some

radical political views deviating from the

party line) in the 1980 local elections

(Halpern 1991, 46; O'Brien 1990, 129),1o

the CCP has instructed all electoral

committees to watch

and prevent any speeches threatening

he

party'sleader-

ship

and the nation's

stability

and

unity

(Wang 1998, 279).

In sum, with scattered exceptions in

1979-1980,

as Nathan

(1997, 235)

rightly concludes, local people's congress

elections so far have not turned into

competitive campaigns owing to tight party

control. Thus,

as

mentioned above,

the overwhelming net outcomes of these elections have been very much in ac-

cordance with CCP's expectations.

Politically, most

of the

winning

candidates

are party members, none of them comes from

organized oppositions,

and

very

few

of

them are independent candidates without the

party's support

or

ap-

proval.Ideologically,very few of the

winning candidatesadvocatepolitical

views

different from the

party line, although

some

of

them made constructive

sug-

gestions

on some

specific

local

policy

issues.

Voters'

Choices

Despite these political

and

ideological

constraints,

the

current electoral

sys-

tem still offers voters two kinds of choices in


elections.

One

is

that,

as mentioned

above,

voters can

have

alternative

candidates

(within

the

political

and

ideological

constraints set

by

the

CCP).

In other

words,

while

voters

cannot

find or vote for

any candidates who

challenge

the fundamental

partyline in most cases, they can choose better or

the

least

worst candidateson

the CCP-sanitized ballots. More

important,

the

overwhelming majority

of the

final candidates on the ballots differ only in

degree

rather

than

in

kind: they

might

be

slightly

different

in their

opinions

only

on some

specific

local

policy

issues or in their

popularity

I

among

the

voters.

9The four cardinal principles are: (1) supporting CCP's leadership, (2) adhering to socialism,

(3) upholding Marxism-Leninism-MaoZedong Thought,

and (4) maintaining proletariatdictator-

ship (see Wang 1999, 57).

'0For example, in 1980 at Beijing University and Hunan

Normal University, some candidates

advocated some radical ideas in publicized electoral campaigns in local people's congress elec-

tions (see Nathan 1985, 193-223; McCormick 1996, 40-41).

Shi suggests that semicompetitive elections only allow voters

to

punish unpopular

leaders

(1999a, 1133).

We

argue that whether the candidates are popular

or

unpopularamong

voters does

not matter very much if all the candidates are directly or indirectly chosen by

the CCP and share

the same fundamental deology.


8/21

184 Jie Chen and YangZhong

The other choice available to voters is to abstain from the elections

without

penalty.

In the

pre-reform elections,

the

people were coerced by

the

regime to

vote (see Townsend 1969; Chen 2000, 649). But in today's partiallyreformed

or

semicompetitive elections, they

are

given a choice between voting and non-

voting. In otherwords, today'svoters have freedom of nonvoting n the

elections.

With

this freedom, those who dislike the fundamentalpolitical and

ideological

orientations sanctioned by the party may choose nonvoting as protest.

Con-

versely, those who support (or are least indifferent about) those political

and

ideological orientationstend to participate n these local elections by

choice.

On

the

one

hand, local people's congress elections offer the electorate two

limited choices: a choice of multiple candidates (within the party limit) for

each

position

and a choice

of abstaining

from

voting.

On the

other hand,

these

elections operate under two severe constraints-political and ideological.

These

constraints

and

choices so far, we believe, have constituted fundamentalrules

of the

game

in the

local people's congress elections. Under these rules,

why do

people

vote? This

question

is the focus

of

the

analysis

that

follows.

Subjective

Motivations for

Voting and Nonvoting

in

the Local People's Congress Elections

The

underlying assumption guiding our reexaminationof

the

subjective mo-

tivations

for

voting

and

nonvoting

behaviors

in

local

people's congress

elec-

tions is mainly derived from a combination of the rational-choice model of

voting behavior (e.g., Downs 1957; Gilison 1968; Karklins 1986; Tullock

1968)

and the

theory of institutionalconstraints e.g.,

Cox

1987, 1990; Ikenberry

1988;

Kaminski1992;North 1995 and 1996;Thelen and Steinmo 1992). The rational-

choice

model simply suggests that

as

rational actors,

citizens

vote

if the ex-

pected

material

or/and spiritual'2

gains from

voting outweigh

the

expected

costs

(Tullock 1968). Applying

this model

to noncompetitive elections

in

the

former

USSR,

for

example, some scholars argue

that

people may gain expressivevalue

of

protesting against

the

currentregime through nonvotingbehavior(e.g.

Gili-

son

1968;

Karklins

1986).

Basically,

the

theory

of

institutional constraintsargues

that a

political

insti-

tution represents

a

set

of

rules and

a

type of environment

that influences and

even

shapes

the

goals, preferences,

and

strategies

of

political

actors and

the

interaction among the actors (North 1996, 344).

To

supplement

the rational-

choice model, moreover,

this

theory suggests

that institutions

impose

con-

straints on choices the rational actors

may

make

(North 1995, 24).

In

other

words,

the rational actors

must

choose

optimal

actions within the

limits set

by

the

institutions.

When

applying this theory

to

elections,

for

example,

Cox

(1987,

83) argues

that

the

behavior

of

voters

will

depend

on the

particular

voting

12The

spiritual ainshere refer

to

the individual's

atisfaction rom expression

of values through

voting or nonvoting.


9/21

Why

Do

People

Vote in SemicompetitiveElections in China? 185

procedure [or rules] in use: not only may the actual voting

options differ but

the strategy of voters in using these options may also differ.

Based on these two theories, we assume that people choose

either to vote or

not

to

vote in

the

current

local

people's congress

elections to maximize mate-

rial and/or spiritual gains and that these elections, as important

political insti-

tutions controlled and dominated by

the

CCP, symbolize

a series of rules (i.e.,

the

constraints

and the

choices

that we explained above)

that set limits on the

ways people consider and

act to

achieve

the

expected gains.

From this

assump-

tion, we further specify the relationships between voters'

subjective orienta-

tions

on

the one

hand,

and

their voting behaviors on the other.

Democratic

Orientation

Do people vote in the current


elections to promote

democracy?While Shi's (1999a, 1128) finding suggests

that people with stron-

ger

democratic orientationvoted more

in

semicompetitive

elections including

those for local

people's congresses,

we

argue

that

support

for democracy

is

negatively

correlated with

the

likelihood

of

voting

in

such elections.

We

believe

that those who

support democracy may

be

more

alienated

by

the

aforementionedsevere

political

and

ideological constraints mposed by

the

sin-

gle authoritarian arty (i.e.,

the CCP) on the local people's congress elections,

since these constraintsare incompatiblewith their democraticvalues.13As a

result, whether these local

elections are considered to be semi- or non-

competitive,

the

democratic

supporters

end to see

voting

in

such elections

as

going through formality

(zou

xingshi),

which serves only

the

function

of

legitimizing

the

undemocratic,

one-partyrule (e.g., Dong 2000).

Since

voting

in

these

elections

is no

longer mandatory

or

coerced,

it is

reasonable

to

expect

the

democratic supporters

as

rational actors to express

their discontent with

the

CCP's

political

and

ideological

constraints

by abstaining

from

the

local

peo-

ple's congress elections.

In our analysis, democratic orientation is measured by three statements:

4

(1) Currently,

what is needed most

in China

is political

democratization.

(2) Elections

to

governmentalpositions

should be conducted

in

such a

way

that there is more than one candidate

for

each post.

(3) Regardless

of one's

political

belief,

he or

she

is entitled to the same

rights

and

protections

as

anyone

else.

Agreement (including agree

and

stronglyagree )

with

any

one

of these state-

ments is scored as

prodemocratic

(1),

whereas

disagreement

(including

dis-

13Shi

(1999b,

395)

himself

points

out that

the official ideology that is imposed by

the CCP

on

the local electionshas been

hostileto free

expressionand, more importantly,

o popular

overeignty.

14All

these items

are derived from

a survey study of the democratic

values in the former Soviet

Union (Gibson, Duch,

and Tedin 1992)

and modified in accordance with the

current

Chinese

so-

ciopolitical environment.


10/21


agree

and

strongly

disagree )

is scored as nondemocratic

(0).15

A

summary

variable for

democratic orientation

s

derived

from

the respondent'ssum of the

scores on all three items.16

Anti-Corruption Attitude

In

respect to the effect of

anti-corruptionattitude on electoral

behavior,

Shi

(1999a, 1128) has argued

and found that those who are aware of official cor-

ruption and hence want to see

corrupt officials punished tend

to vote in

semi-

competitive

elections

(including

elections for local

people's

congresses).

But

there are

at

least two major reasons to

support

a more

moderate

argument hat

the

desire to punish or remove corrupt officials from their current

positions of

leadership does not necessarily relate to voting behavior in local

people's con-

gress elections. First, given the

authoritarian ature

of the

Chinese polity, most

official

corruption

has taken

place among government (or

administrative)

and

party

officials who have

so-called

real

power

that

can

be

used

(or

abused)

for

their

own

personal gains (e.g.,

Chen

1999; Gong 1997; Kwong

1997;

Liu

1998).

But

since most deputies

to

local

people's congresses

are not

government

offi-

cials or full-time

professional

politicians, they

do not have

such

real

power

and

hence are not in the

strategicposition

of

being corrupt.

Therefore,

the

depu-

ties to and

candidates

for

local people's congresses

can

hardly

be

direct

targets

of

anti-corruption

entiment

of

the masses.

Second, the most

effective

and

common way

for

ordinarycitizens to

identify

and

punish corrupt

officials is

to

report (usually anonymously)corruption

cases

to such institutions as

discipline inspection committees and centers for report-

ing economic crimes, which

are charged with power

to

investigate

and

pros-

ecute

those cases

(Sun

1999, 6).

These institutions have so far been considered

the

most

rewarding though

not

completely risk-free)

channels

for the

public

to

express

their

complaints

about official

corruption.Between 1995 and

2000,

for

example,

about 98% of convicted official

corruptioncases

in the

entire

country

resulted from

the clues provided to these institutions (CCTV

2000). This

is

in

part

because since

the

1989

Tiananmen

incident,

the

top

CCP

leadership

has

given

these institutions more

judicial

and

administrativepower to combat

cor-

ruption, especially

at

middle and local

levels,

in

order

to

restore and boost its

legitimacy with the public

(Baum 1994, 317-18; Cao 1996;

Li

1996).

As a

result, voting

in

local people's

congress

elections becomes

a

much

less,

if

not

the

least,

attractive

means

for

voters

(as

rational

actors)

o

fight

official

corruption.

Based on these two

reasons, therefore,

we

expect

the

anti-corruption

senti-

ment

not to

be

significantly

correlated

with

voting

or

nonvoting

in the

local

people's congress

elections. Like

Shi's

instrument,anti-corruption

entiment

in

15A similar scoring scheme is also used in Shi's study (1999a, 1128).

6The reliability analysis for these three items shows that the inter-item correlations are moder-

ate, ranging from .313 to .437. This set of three items yields a reliability coefficient (alpha) of .76.


11/21

Why

Do

People

Vote in

SemicompetitiveElections

in

China? 187

this study is measured by one question asking respondents whether to their

knowledge official-corruptionproblems

have been adequatelyaddressed.

A

pos-

itive answer to this question is coded 0,

while a negative answer is coded 1.

Internal

Efficacy

Are

those who have a high degree of confidence in their ability to under-

stand and influence politics (i.e.,

internal efficacy) more likely to vote

in local

people's congress elections? Contrary o Shi's

proposition,

we

argue that under

the current electoral system for local

people's congresses, people with strong

internalefficacy17 are less likely to vote.

Shi argues (1999a, 1130) that

in

China internal

efficacy,

rather

han external

efficacy (beliefs in government'sresponsiveness to citizens' demands), moti-

vates

people

to

vote

in

such not-so-perfect

elections as

those

for

local

peo-

ple's congresses.

This is

because,

according

to Shi

(1999a, 1130), people

with

strong

internal

efficacy

use this

imperfect

electoral

system

to

engineer po-

litical liberalization. As we discussed

above, however,

the current local

peo-

ple's congresses

are

politically

and

ideologically

constrained

by

the CCP so

that any ideas and initiatives deviatingfrom the party line are suppressed with

few

exceptions. Therefore,

it

seems to be more reasonable to

argue

that

people

who

believe

in their

own ability

to

understand

as

well

as to influence

politics

in

contemporaryChina are more likely to turn away from the ballot box and to

find meaningful ways (other than

voting)

to realize their own ideas

or

ideals.

As

Bahry

and Silver

(1990, 827) suggest,

a

greater

sense of internal

efficacy

might be an importantresource that would allow

someone to

cope

with the

risks of unconventional activism

(versus such conventional

activism as vot-

ing). Therefore,we expect that those

who

have a

strong

sense

of internal

effi-

cacy tend to be less likely to go to the

polls.

In

our study, we use one

straightforward

tatement to

capture

the

respon-

dent's sense of internal

efficacy:

I

believe

I

have

quite adequate

understand-

ing of and ability to make some difference in the situations of my work unit

and/or my community (e.g., neighborhood

and

district).

The

respondents

were

asked

to

assess

their

levels of internal

efficacy

on a

four-point

scale where 1

stands

for

no

efficacy ( strongly

disagree )

and

4

refers

to

strong efficacy

( stronglyagree ).

Regime

Support

From his

findings about

the

electoral

effects of such

subjective

orientations

as democraticvalue, anti-corruption entiment and internalefficacy, Shi infers

that people vote

in

semicompetitive elections . . . not because they

are identi-

fied with the

regime,

and

not

because

they

have affective

attachments o

polit-

17In our analysis, internal efficacy refers to the feeling that individual political action does

have, or can have, an impact upon the political process (Campbell, Gurin and Miller 1954, 187).


12/21


ical authority Shi 1999a, 1135). While Shi does not test his strong inference

directly against empirical evidence, here we

utilize

our Beijing data to reexam-

ine his important nference about the relationship between regime supportand

voting behavior

in

such semicompetitive elections as those for local

people's

congresses.

Regime support in our study is defined as the diffused or generalized

at-

tachments members of a polity have for the government, its values, and the

political system

in

general (Macridis

and

Burg 1991, 8-12).

In

their study

of

Soviet mass participation,Bahryand Silver (1990, 828) arguethat peoplewho

concur with the

fundamental

values of the Soviet

regime

should be more

in-

volved

in

compliant political

and social

activity,

since

they

would have more

of

a normative stake

in

the system.

Of the institutionalized

political

activities

in

contemporaryChina, voting

in

local people's congress elections seems to be

one of the best channels for such a

compliant

act. This is

because,

as our

earlier

discussion

on

the

ideological

and

political

constraints

n

these elections

indicates, the CCP's normative values and political leadership still prevail

in

the elections. Thus, voting

in

the elections can be considered

an act

to

comply

with these norms and

the

political leadership, especially

when

voting

is not

coerced by

the

regime. Contrary

o Shi's inference mentioned

above,

therefore

we

expect that

those who

support

the

regime's

norms and

the

political

system

as a

whole tend to

be more

likely

to vote

in

these elections.

To capture respondents' support for the regime, we used four statements

as

follows:

(1)

I am

proud to live under the currentpolitical system.

(2)

I

have an obligation to support the currentgovernment.

(3)

I

have respect

for

the political

institutions

in

China

today.

(4)

I

feel that my personal values are the same as those advocated by

the

government.

Items 1 and 4 are designed to detect the respondents'affect for the values/

norms of the regime, while items 2 and 3 are intendedto tap into their support

for

political

institutions and the

political system

as

a

whole.

Disagreement

(in-

cluding

both

strongly disagree

and

disagree )

with

any

one of these state-

ments is

coded 0, whereas agreement (including agree

and

stronglyagree )

is

coded

1. These four items were then combined

to

form

an

additive

index

of

regime support.

8

To summarizebriefly, we have hypothesizedthat those who have

a

stronger

democratic orientation

and

a

keener

sense of internal

efficacy

are

less

likely

to

vote in such semicompetitive elections as those for local people's congresses,

while those who are

supportive

of the

regime

are more

likely

to vote

in the

18Our eliability analysis for these four

items shows that the inter-itemcorrelationsare generally

moderate, ranging from

.332 to .563. This set

of four items produces a reliability coefficient (al-

pha) of .78.


13/21

Why

Do

People

Vote in SemicompetitiveElections in China? 189

elections. We have also hypothesized that the anti-corruptionsentiment

is not

significantly correlatedwith voting or nonvoting

in the


elections.

Multivariate Analysis

Table 2 presents a logistic regression

model to capture the effects

of the

subjective orientations (specified above) on voting behaviors

in

local people's

congress elections.

In

order o assess whether hese subjective orientations

affect

voting

behavior

independently

of some objective (in a relative sense)

factors,

we also include such

demographic

variablesas a person'sage, gender, education,

and

residency. Overall,

the

results

from this multivariateanalysis confirm our

expectations explained above and contradict or differ from those presented

in

Shi's

(1999a)

recent work.'9

First, contrary to Shi's finding, the results

in

Table

4

clearly indicate

that

those who are more supportive

of democratic values and more confident in

their capability of understanding

and influencing public affairs are less likely

to

vote

in

local people's congress elections. From these findings,

we can draw

at

least

two

important implications, contrasting

with Shi's

argument (1999a)

that people vote

in

these semicompetitive elections to pursue their

own inter-

ests

and facilitate democratization.

One is that such a legitimate participatory

act as

voting

in

local

people's

congress

elections

may

still be

very

much

un-

acceptable

to the

democratic supporters

and politically confident

citizens as a

means to achieve their political objectives.

The other implication is thatnonvot-

ing

in

these elections could

have been used by this group as

a

sort

of passive

protest or boycott against the current

electoral system.20

Second, contrary

o

Shi's strong

inference that

people

vote

in

semicompet-

itive elections ... not because they are identified with the regime,

and not

because

they

have affective

attachmentsto

political authority 1999a, 1135),

the

results from our multivariateanalysis show

that those who are more

sup-

portive

of the

political regime

under

the CCP

are

more

likely

to

go

to the vot-

ing booth.

This

finding implies

that although he current egime

no

longer

coerces

people

to

vote,

the CCP

can

still draw

a lot of

political support

from those

who

vote.

Thus,

local

people's congress

elections seem

to work to boost the

legiti-

macy

of the CCP.

Finally,

as distinct from Shi's (1999a, 1128-29) finding

that

the desire

to

remove corruptofficials motivates people

to vote

in

semicompetitive

elections

(including

local

people's congress elections),

the

results

from

this

multivariate

19Thebivariate

relationships

between each of the independent

variables and the

dependent vari-

able are fully consistent with the

results of the multivariate

analysis. Upon request,

full information

on the bivariaterelationships is

available from the

authors.

20Some early studies (e.g., Bahry

and Silver 1990;

Karklins

1986)

of

political

participation

n

the former Soviet

Union also suggest that nonvoting

seems to be a form of protest.


14/21


TABLE

2

Logistic Regression of

Voter Turnout on Subjective Motivations

Voting

in Local

People's

Congress Elections

Estimated Standard

IndependentVariable

Coefficient Error

Age (18-76)

.036*** .008

Age squared

-.001* .000

Sex

(F

=

0;

M

=

1) .169 .185

Education .134 .124

Residence

(Rural

=

0; Urban l)a .023

.016

Democratic orientation -.338*** .096

Regime support .401*** .129

Internalefficacy

-. 192** .074

Anti-corruptionsentiment

.109 .204

Constant

-3.106*** .701

-2

Log-likelihood 685.833

Model

Chi-square 66.879***

Degrees

of freedom

9

N

591

aWe

used the same indicatoras thatemployed in Shi's study,householdregistration, o measure

the

respondent'sresidency. *p

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Why Do People Vote in Semicompetitive Elections in China