Local Congresses and Congress Delegates in Mainland China as Agents of Democratization?

中国共和国的政治体制是准议会制，但由一个共产党主导。数十年来，大陆的人大代表中国被斥为“橡皮图章”，人大代表被斥为“政权代理人”。这种描述似乎不再准确：最近的研究发现，国会是重要的政治参与者。最活跃的人大不是在北京的最高层，而是在地方。这个项目收集和分析省、市、县和乡镇各级国会的数据，以得出关于地方国会和国会代表如何以及在多大程度上充当民主化推动者的一般性推论。具体来说，它将回答以下问题：地方人大代表的行动、态度和广泛的价值观在多大程度上代表了选举他们的普通中国公民的观点和利益？通过这样做，该项目将解决之前研究的一个发现，即地方国会的发展不是原始民主的。它还将解决之前关于人大与其他政治机构之间合作或对抗关系的研究中的分歧，即人大代表在多大程度上还充当地方政府和共产党委员会的代理人。以前对地方人大和人大代表的研究建立在定性的田野调查基础上，对于人大的政治意义及其未来对中国政治发展可能产生的影响等关键问题，没有提供可靠的、概括性的答案。该项目收集了五个省的省、市、县、乡四级人大代表和政府的选举数据。它还调查了选定地区的人大代表。行政和调查数据与统计年鉴中更容易获得的经济数据合并在一起。样本量和样本选择原则允许统计分析得出可以广泛推广的结论，以得出关于中国大陆民主化前景的答案。除了它的智力优势，这个项目将产生更广泛的影响。它将把拥有不同机会和技能的学者聚集在一起，但共同致力于可靠的定量实证研究，与主要研究人员建立新的伙伴关系。它将促进与大学和中国社会科学院的中国政治学家的合作。最后，这个项目的发现将有助于美国政策制定者对表面上具有代表性的机构和大陆选举产生的中国代表对政治发展的影响有一个细致入微的理解。

The political system of the People's Republic of China is quasi-parliamentary, but dominated by a single communist party. For decades, congresses in mainland China were dismissed as "rubber stamps" and congress delegates as "regime agents." This characterization appears no longer accurate: recent studies find that congresses are important political players. The most lively congresses are found not at the top of the system in Beijing, but in the localities. This project collects and analyzes data on congresses at provincial, municipal, county, and township levels to draw generalizable inferences about how and how much local congresses and congress delegates act as agents of democratization. Specifically, it will answer the following question: to what extent do actions, attitudes, and broad values of local congress delegates represent the views and interests of the ordinary Chinese citizens who elect them? In so doing, the project will address a finding of previous studies that local congressional development is not proto-democratic. It will also resolve differences in previous studies about the cooperative or confrontational relationship between congresses and other political institutions, that is, how much congress delegates also act as agents of local governments and communist party committees.Previous studies of local congresses and congress delegates are based on qualitative fieldwork, which have not provided reliable, generalizable answers to key questions about the political significance of congresses and their likely future impact on Chinese political development. This project collects data on elections of congress delegates and governments at provincial, municipal, county, and township levels in five provinces. It also surveys congress delegates in the selected localities. Administrative and survey data are merged with more readily available economic data from statistical yearbooks. Sample sizes and sample selection principles permit statistical analysis to produce conclusions that can be broadly generalized to yield answers about prospects for mainland Chinese democratization.Beyond its intellectual merit, this project will have broader impact. It will bring together scholars with different opportunities and skills, but a shared commitment to reliable quantitative empirical research, in a new partnership with the principal investigator. It will foster collaborations with Chinese political scientists in the universities and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Finally, findings from this project will contribute to a nuanced understanding by American policy makers of the impact on political development of ostensibly representative institutions and the representatives elected to them in mainland China.