Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
This study examines the influence of voter heterogeneity, measured as religious fractionalization, on how the introduction of elections affects public goods in rural China. We document religious composition and the introduction of village-level elections for over two hundred villages and examine the interaction effect of average heterogeneity and the introduction of elections on village-government provision of public goods. We find that the increase in public goods due to elections declines with heterogeneity of villages, which we interpret as evidence that voter heterogeneity constrains the potential benefits of introducing elections.
This paper draws on evidence from loosely structured interviews and data from original surveys of 5,130 delegates in township, county, and municipal congresses to argue that congressional representation unfolds as authoritarian parochialism in China. It makes three new arguments. First, popularly elected local congresses that once only mechanically stood in for the Chinese mass public, through demographically descriptive and politically symbolic representation, now work as substantively representative institutions. Chinese local congressmen and women view themselves and act as “delegates,” not Burkean trustees or Leninist party agents. Second, this congressional representation is not commonly expressed in the quintessentially legislative activities familiar in other regime types. Rather, it is an extra-legislative variant of pork barrel politics: parochial activity by delegates to deliver targeted public goods to the geographic constituency. Third, this authoritarian parochialism is due to institutional arrangements and regime priorities, some common to single-party dictatorships and some distinct to Chinese authoritarianism.
Authoritarian governments produce internal assessments of the quality of governance that allow them to identify and address brewing problems before they threaten regime stability. This paper provides a theory of how the information necessary to produce such assessments is gathered. The empirical focus of the paper is on China, which is used to illustrate how information-gathering channels in communist autocracies differ from those used in electoral autocracies. In particular, petitions rather than elections function as the main channel for gathering information on popular perceptions about governance problems in communist autocracies. The paper argues that information compiled through the analysis of petitions is valued in China because it allows the leadership to identify problems with policy implementation; to track corruption; and to monitor the level of popular trust in the regime. Therefore, petitions serve as a barometer of public opinion regarding governance problems. The paper is based primarily on archival sources and on internal-circulation (neibu) materials collected in China.
Encina Hall
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Jessie Jin-Jen Leu a government official from the Republic of China (Taiwan), was a visiting scholar at the Stanford Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) in 2012-13.
Ms. Leu is a senior economic officer who worked in various positions at the Ministry of Economic Affairs of R.O.C. She is experienced on the import management and multilateral trade related to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). Currently she is working as an associate researcher to the National Security Advisor for economic affairs.
Ms. Leu graduated from Taiwan’s Tam-Kang University with a Bachelor's degree of International Trade in 1989. She continued her Master’s degree at University of Wyoming, United States in 1995. Ms. Leu also participated in the WTO negotiation and leadership Program at the Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in 2003.
About the topic: When in late 2009, President Obama ordered the surge of an additional 30,000 troops into Afghanistan to reverse Taliban momentum, major tenets of the U.S. military counterinsurgency doctrine shaped the resulting campaign plan. Adages such as "protect the population" and "clear, hold, and build" served to guide civil-military actions. With the hindsight of four years, however, it seems clear that some of the important assumptions upon which the plan was premised were significantly flawed. Karl Eikenberry, who served in both senior diplomatic and military posts in Afghanistan, will examine the logic of counterinsurgency doctrine as it was applied during the surge and discuss its strengths and shortcomings.
About the speaker: Karl Eikenberry served as the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan from May 2009 until July 2011, where he led the civilian surge directed by President Obama to reverse insurgent momentum and set the conditions for transition to full Afghan sovereignty. Before appointment as Chief of Mission in Kabul, Ambassador Eikenberry had a thirty-five year career in the United States Army, retiring in April 2009 with the rank of Lieutenant General. He has served in various policy and political-military positions, including Deputy Chairman of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Military Committee in Brussels, Belgium; Director for Strategic Planning and Policy for U.S. Pacific Command at Camp Smith, Hawaii; U.S. Security Coordinator and Chief of the Office of Military Cooperation in Kabul, Afghanistan; Assistant Army and later Defense Attaché at the United States Embassy in Beijing, China; Senior Country Director for China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mongolia in the Office of the Secretary of Defense; and Deputy Director for Strategy, Plans, and Policy on the Army Staff.
CISAC Conference Room
Abstract:
How can we encourage illegal actors to seek assistance from the state? Lawbreakers are generally hesitant to engage with the state, out of fear of incurring sanctions for having violated the law. They hesitate to seek law enforcement help if they are victims of crimes. They also shy away from other state institutions that could provide them with assistance such as social and health services, or education. The paper addresses this question by evaluating whether an incentive can increase HIV/AIDS testing amongst lawbreakers, who responds, and why. It presents a randomized field experiment in which sex workers in Beijing, China were assigned an incentive for getting an HIV test.
Speaker Bio:
Margaret Boittin is a fellow at CDDRL. She is completing her PhD in Political Science at UC Berkeley, and her JD at Stanford. Her dissertation examines regulation in China, focused on state intervention in prostitution from the perspectives of health, policing, and business. Her work combines ethnographic methods, as well as field and survey experiments.
Encina Ground Floor Conference Room
Encina Hall
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
Margaret Boittin has a JD from Stanford, and is completing her PhD in Political Science at UC Berkeley. Her dissertation is on the regulation of prostitution in China. She is also conducting research on criminal law policy and local enforcement in the United States, and human trafficking in Nepal.
Encina Hall
616 Serra Street,
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
Shui Yung Chang (張水庸) is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China (Taiwan).
Mr. Chang is a career diplomat who joined the Foreign Service in 1992 and has served in various capacities in Asia, Europe, Africa, Australia and America. His overseas posts for the Foreign Service include Vice Consul in Johannesburg, South Africa; First Secretary in New Delhi, India; and Director in Miami, Florida, United States. In Taipei he held the positions of Desk Officer of African Affairs; Section Chief of the Institute of Diplomacy and International Affairs (formerly known as Foreign Service Institute); Secretary of the Coordination Council of North American Affairs; Director of the Public Diplomacy Coordination Council on home assignment and served as the External Affairs Officer and translator to the Premier Office of Executive Yuan, R.O.C.
Mr. Chang graduated from National Taiwan University with a Bachelor of Arts in Foreign Languages and Literatures in 1991. He continued his education on History of Art at University of Pretoria, South Africa 1996-1997, and obtained Master of Arts in Strategic Studies from Australian National University, Australia in 2005. He also received his certificate on diplomacy from Oxford University, United Kingdom in 1995.
Mr. Chang speaks fluent Taiwanese, Mandarin and English. His research interests include Asia studies, International Affairs, Taiwan Foreign Policy, Public Diplomacy, Democracy and Development. In his career he also actively involved in the promotion of culture, academy and humanitarian work for Taiwan. Over the years, Mr. Chang has travelled widely across countries and continents on his official trips and personal tours with family. He is married to Ms Maya Chen and has two children, Sonia and Sophia Chang. They currently reside in Taiwan.