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

中华人民共和国的政治体制是准议会制，但由一个共产党主导。几十年来，中国大陆的代表大会被视为“橡皮图章”，代表大会代表被视为“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。最热闹的代表大会不是在北京的最高层，而是在地方。本研究通过收集和分析省、市、县、乡各级代表大会的数据，对地方代表大会和代表大会代表作为民主化代理人的作用和程度进行归纳。具体而言，它将回答以下问题：地方人大代表的行为、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？在这样做的时候，该项目将解决以前的研究发现，地方国会的发展是不民主的原型。它还将解决以往关于人大与其他政治机构之间的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也充当了地方政府和共产党委员会的代理人。以往关于地方人大和人大代表的研究是基于定性的实地调查，没有提供可靠的，对有关代表大会的政治意义及其对中国政治发展可能产生的未来影响的关键问题的概括性回答。该项目收集了五个省的省、市、县、乡各级人大代表和政府的选举数据。它还调查了选定地区的代表大会代表。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。样本量和样本选择原则使统计分析能够得出结论，这些结论可以广泛地概括为中国大陆民主化前景的答案。除了知识价值之外，这个项目将产生更广泛的影响。它将汇集具有不同机会和技能的学者，但共同致力于可靠的定量实证研究，与首席研究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科学家的合作。最后，本研究的发现将有助于美国决策者对中国大陆表面上的代议制机构及其当选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.