¹ In the context of local governance, I refer to democratic practices as those that promote pluralism and authoritarian practices as those that stifle it, or promote monism. However, although participation suggests a growing plurality of voices in governance, my research shows that participatory practices are not always democratic, because these voices may be restricted or undermined. This is the contradiction at the heart of ‘participatory authoritarianism’.

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¹⁰ Tang, Wenfang, Populist Authoritarianism: Chinese Political Culture and Regime Sustainability (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For more on protest as a feedback mechanism, see Lorentzen, Peter, ‘Regularizing rioting: Permitting public protest in an authoritarian regime’, Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 8 (2013), pp. 127–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Xi, Chen, Social Protest and Contentious Authoritarianism in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012)Google Scholar; Pan, Jidong Chen Jennifer and Xu, Yiqing, ‘Sources of authoritarian responsiveness: A field experiment in China’, American Journal of Political Science, 60:2 (2016), pp. 383–400Google Scholar.

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²¹ Ibid.

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²⁶ These are composed partly of civic activists and partly of local government officials, which aim to mediate between different sections of society and promote civic harmony. See Richter, ‘Putin and the public chamber’.

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¹¹² Interview with local official, Shanghai, 7 June 2019. Other research has explored municipal-level participatory governance, which, for reasons of space, I cannot explore here in detail. See Duckett and Wang, ‘Extending political participation in China’.

¹¹³ Interview with scholar, Shanghai, 15 March 2019; Interview with residents’ committee member, 2 June 2019.

¹¹⁴ Duckett and Wang, ‘Extending political participation in China’.

¹¹⁵ Due to the difficulty of observing these practices, especially as an outsider, I rely on the experience of current and former members of participatory bodies described to me in interviews.

¹¹⁶ Owen, ‘“Consentful contention” in a corporate state’.

¹¹⁷ Interview with public chamber member, Samara, 31 October 2012.

¹¹⁸ Interview with city infrastructure activist, St Petersburg, 22 May 2018; interview with recycling activist, St Petersburg, 8 June 2018.

¹¹⁹ Interview with participatory budgeting participant, St Petersburg, 16 September 2019; Interview with public council member, St Petersburg, 13 July 2012; Interview with public council member, St Petersburg, 21 August 2012.

¹²⁰ Interview with scholar, Shanghai, 1 March 2019. Deliberative polling, whereby a randomly selected (hence free of government influence) population is invited to debate policy, has been implemented in a few municipalities. See Fishkin, James, James, He, Baogang, Luskin, Robert, and Siu, Alice, ‘Deliberative democracy in an unlikely place: Deliberative polling in China’, British Journal of Political Science, 40:2 (2010), pp. 1–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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¹²⁴ Interview with participatory budgeting participant, St Petersburg, 16 September 2019; interview with scholar, Hanghzou, 14 March 2019.

¹²⁵ Interview with public council member 1, Moscow, 6 November 2012; interview with public council member 2, Moscow, 9 November 2012.

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¹³¹ Interview with participatory budgeting participant, St Petersburg, 10 May 2019.

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¹³³ Interview with official, St Petersburg, 8 May 2019.

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