Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-31T15:17:52.721Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Public Goods and Regime Support in Urban China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 November 2016

Bruce J. Dickson ,
Pierre F. Landry ,
Mingming Shen  and
Jie Yan
Bruce J. Dickson*
Affiliation:
George Washington University.
Pierre F. Landry
Affiliation:
NYU-Shanghai.
Mingming Shen
Affiliation:
Peking University.
Jie Yan
Affiliation:
Peking University.
*
Email: [email protected] (corresponding author).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Why do authoritarian regimes try to improve the quality of their governance? In the absence of democratic institutions to monitor, reward and punish their performance, authoritarian politicians are normally expected to seek their self-interest through corruption and rewards to cronies, rather than providing for the public welfare. However, the Chinese state has actively promoted improved governance in recent years, with greater attention to quality of life issues to balance the primary focus on sustaining rapid economic growth. This paper analyses intra-national variation in the provision of public goods in urban China and the impact of public goods on regime support. Does better governance lead to higher levels of public support for the regime, even in the absence of democratic elections? Our evidence suggests that it does, with a greater impact for the local level than for the centre.

摘要

为什么威权政府要提高其治理水平? 由于缺乏民主的监督, 奖励和处罚机制, 威权政府往往倾向于通过腐败和奖励裙带的方式来获取自身利益, 而不是提高公共福利。然而, 近些年, 中国政府却积极地提升其政府治理水平, 中国政府将更多的注意力从关注经济持续快速增长转移到了民生问题。本文分析了中国城市公共产品供给在国内的变化情况及公共产品提供对制度支持的影响。即使在没有民主选举的情况下, 更好的政府治理能够带来对制度的更多支持吗? 我们的研究表明, 高的治理水平能带来对制度更高的支持水平。这种影响机制在对地方政府的支持方面的影响比对中央政府更大。

Keywords

Chinapublic goodslegitimacygovernance中国公共产品合法性治理
Type
Articles
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 228 , December 2016 , pp. 859 - 880
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alesina, Alberto, Baqir, Reza and Easterly, William. 1999. “Public goods and ethnic divisions.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 114(4), 1243–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ang, Yuen Yuen. 2016. How China Escaped the Poverty Trap. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barber, Benjamin R. 2013. If Mayors Ruled the World: Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Brady, Anne-Marie. 2008. Marketing Dictatorship: Propaganda and Thought Work in Contemporary China. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce, and Downs, George W.. 2005. “Development and democracy.” Foreign Affairs 84(5), 77–86.Google Scholar
Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce, Smith, Alastair, Siverson, Randolph M. and Morrow, James. 2003. The Logic of Political Survival. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cai, Yongshun, and Zhou, Lin. 2013. “Disciplining local officials in China: the case of conflict management.” The China Journal 70, 98–119.Google Scholar
Chan, Anita, Madsen, Richard and Unger, Jonathan. 2009. Chen Village: Revolution to Globalization. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Chen, Jie. 2004. Popular Political Support in Urban China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Dickson, Bruce J. 2008. Wealth into Power: The Communist Party's Embrace of China's Private Sector. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Donaldson, John. 2011. Small Works: Poverty and Economic Development in Southwestern China. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Duckett, Jane. 2010. “Economic crisis and China's 2009 health reform plan: rebuilding social protections for stability and growth?” China Analysis: Studies in China's Political Economy 80, 1–14.Google Scholar
Easton, David. 1975. “A re-assessment of the concept of political support.” British Journal of Political Science 5(4), 435–457.Google Scholar
Edin, Maria. 2003. “State capacity and local agent control in China: CCP cadre management from a township perspective.” The China Quarterly 173, 35–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eggleston, Karen. 2010. “ Kan bing nan, kan bing gui: challenges for China's health-care system thirty years into reform.” In Oi, Jean C., Rozelle, Scott and Zhou, Xueguang (eds.), Growing Pains: Tensions and Opportunity in China's Transformation. Palo Alto, CA: The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University, 229–272.Google Scholar
Evans, Peter. 1992. “The state as problem and solution: predation, embedded autonomy and adjustment.” In Haggard, Stephan and Kaufman, Robert (eds.), The Politics of Economic Adjustment: International Constraints, Distributive Politics, and the State. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 139–181.Google Scholar
Frazier, Mark. 2010. Socialist Inequality: Pensions and the Politics of Uneven Development in China. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Gallagher, Mary Elizabeth. 2005. Contagious Capitalism: Globalization and the Politics of Labor in China. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Gandhi, Jennifer. 2008. Political Institutions under Dictatorship. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerring, John, Thacker, Strom C. and Alfaro, Rodrigo. 2012. “Democracy and human development.” Journal of Politics 74(1), 1–17.Google Scholar
Gibson, Clark C., and Hoffman, Barak D.. 2013. “Coalitions not conflicts: ethnicity, political institutions, and expenditure in Africa.” Comparative Politics 45(3), 273–291.Google Scholar
Gilley, Bruce. 2008. “Legitimacy and institutional change: the case of China.” Comparative Political Studies 41(3), 259–284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilley, Bruce, and Holbig, Heike. 2009. “The debate on Party legitimacy in China: a mixed quantitative/qualitative analysis.” Journal of Contemporary China 18(59), 337–356.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haggard, Stephan, and Kaufmann, Robert R.. 2008. Development, Democracy, and Welfare States: Latin America, East Asia, and Eastern Europe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hu, Angang. 2011. China in 2020: A New Type of Superpower. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Huber, Evelyne, and Stephens, John D.. 2001. Development and Crisis of the Welfare State: Parties and Policies in Global Markets. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Huntington, Samuel P. 1969. Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Hurst, William. 2009. The Chinese Worker after Socialism. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaufman, Joan, Kleinman, Arthur and Saich, Tony (eds.). 2006. AIDS and Social Policy in China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center.Google Scholar
Kennedy, John James. 2009. “Popular support and the rural and urban divide in China: the influence of education and the state-controlled media.” Political Studies 57(3), 517–536.Google Scholar
Kipnis, Andrew B. 2011. Governing Educational Desire: Culture, Politics, and Schooling in China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Landry, Pierre F. 2008. Decentralized Authoritarianism in China: The Communist Party's Control of Local Elites in the Post-Mao Era. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Landry, Pierre F., and Shen, Mingming. 2005. “Reaching migrants in survey research: the use of the global positioning system to reduce coverage bias in China.” Political Analysis 13(1), 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, Ching Kwan. 2007. Against the Law: Labor Protests in China's Rustbelt and Sunbelt. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Li, Lianjiang. 2008. “Political trust and petitioning in the Chinese countryside.” Comparative Politics 40(2), 209–226.Google Scholar
Lin, Tingjin. 2013. The Politics of Financing Education in China. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Lipset, Seymour Martin. 1959. “Some social requisites of democracy: economic development and political legitimacy.” American Political Science Review 53(1), 69–105.Google Scholar
Lu, Jie. 2015. Varieties of Governance in China: Migration and Change in Chinese Villages. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Magaloni, Beatriz. 2008. Voting for Autocracy: Hegemonic Party Survival and its Demise in Mexico. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Michelson, Ethan. 2012. “Public goods and state-society relations: an impact study of China's rural stimulus.” In Yang, Dali L. (ed.), The Global Recession and China's Political Economy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 131–157.Google Scholar
Ministry of Finance. 2010. 2007 Quanguo dishixian caizheng tongji ziliao (2007 Financial Statistics at the Prefecture, Municipal, and County Levels of China) . Beijing: China Financial & Economic Publishing House.Google Scholar
Nathan, Andrew J. 2003. “Authoritarian resilience.” Journal of Democracy 14(1), 6–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Naughton, Barry. 2007. The Chinese Economy: Transitions and Growth. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
O'Brien, Kevin J., and Li, Lianjiang. 1999. “Selective policy implementation in rural China.” Comparative Politics 31(2), 167–186.Google Scholar
OECD. 2005. China's Governance in Transition. Paris: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.Google Scholar
Parish, William L., and Whyte, Martin King. 1977. Village and Family in Contemporary China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Pei, Minxin. 2006. China's Trapped Transition: The Limits of Developmental Autocracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Perry, Elizabeth J. 1994. “Labor divided: sources of state formation in modern China.” In Migdal, Joel, Kohli, Atul and Shue, Vivienne (eds.), State Power and Social Forces: Domination and Transformation in the Third World. New York: Cambridge University Press, 143–173.Google Scholar
Przeworski, Adam, Alvarez, Michael E., Cheibub, José Antonio and Limongi, Fernando. 2000. Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-being in the World, 1950–1990. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Saich, Tony. 2008. Providing Public Goods in Transitional China. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Schubert, Gunter. 2014. “Political legitimacy in contemporary China revisited: theoretical refinement and empirical operationalization.” Journal of Contemporary China 23(88), 593–611.Google Scholar
Sen, Amartya. 2004. Resources, Values, and Development. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Shambaugh, David. 2009. China's Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press and Woodrow Wilson Center Press.Google Scholar
Shi, Fayong, and Cai, Yongshun. 2006. “Disaggregating the state: networks and collective resistance in Shanghai.” The China Quarterly 186, 314–332.Google Scholar
Shi, Tianjian. 2001. “Cultural values and political trust: a comparison of the People's Republic of China and Taiwan.” Comparative Politics 33(4), 401–419.Google Scholar
Shue, Vivienne. 2010. “Legitimacy crisis in China?” In Gries, Peter Hays and Rosen, Stanley (eds.), Chinese Politics: State, Society, and the Market. New York: Routledge, 41–68.Google Scholar
Singh, Prerna. 2011. “We-ness and welfare: a longitudinal analysis of social development in Kerala, India.” World Development 39(2), 282–293.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solinger, Dorothy J., and Hu, Yiyang. 2012. “Welfare, wealth and poverty in urban China: the dibao and its differential disbursement.” The China Quarterly 211, 741–764.Google Scholar
Steinfeld, Edward S. 1998. Forging Reform in China: The Fate of State-owned Industry. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Stockmann, Daniela. 2012. Media Commercialization and Authoritarian Rule in China. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tang, Wenfang. 2016. Populist Authoritarianism: Chinese Political Culture and Regime Sustainability. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tsai, Kellee S. 2007. Capitalism without Democracy: The Private Sector in Contemporary China. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Tsai, Lily Lee. 2007. Accountability without Democracy: Solidary Groups and Public Goods Provision in Rural China. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Unirule. 2012. 2010 Report on Public Governance in China's Provincial Capital Cities. Beijing: Unirule.Google Scholar
Walder, Andrew G. 1986. Communist Neo-traditionalism: Work and Authority in Chinese Industry. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Wallace, Jeremy. 2014. Cities and Stability: Urbanization, Redistribution, and Regime Survival in China. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Whiting, Susan H. 2004. “The cadre evaluation system at the grass roots: the paradox of Party rule.” In Naughton, Barry and Yang, Dali L. (eds.), Holding China Together: Diversity and National Integration in the Post-Deng Era. New York: Cambridge University Press, 101–119.Google Scholar
Wong, Christine P.W., and Bird, Richard. 2008. “China's fiscal system: a work in progress.” In Brandt, Loren and Rawski, Thomas (eds.), China's Great Transformation: Origins, Mechanism, and Consequences of the Post-Reform Economic Boom. New York: Cambridge University Press, 429–466.Google Scholar
World Bank. 2000. China: Overcoming Rural Poverty. Washington, DC: World Bank.Google Scholar
World Bank. 2006. China: Governance, Investment Climate, and Harmonious Society: Competitiveness Enhancements for 120 Cities in China. Washington, DC: World Bank.Google Scholar
Wright, Teresa. 2010. Accepting Authoritarianism: State–Society Relations in China's Reform Era. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Yusuf, Shahid, Nabeshima, Kaoru and Perkins, Dwight. 2006. Under New Ownership: Privatizing China's State-owned Enterprises. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press and The World Bank.Google Scholar