Politics & Governance / Domestic Politics / Democracy & Elections

China s Village Elections-中国农村基层选举兴衰

这些资料通过对中国近40年农村数据的分析，探讨了**基层选举兴衰**背后的组织经济学逻辑。研究指出，当**国家官僚能力不足**且监督成本过高时，威权体制倾向于引入选举，利用村民的**信息优势**来遏制腐败并改善公共服务。然而，选举也带来了**垂直控制力削弱**的代价，导致计划生育等违背民意的政策执行力下降。随着经济增长提升了**财政收入**，上级政府通过加强**垂直化管理**和技术监控，逐步回收了村庄的自治权。这种演变表明，选举在威权体制下被视作一种**功能性工具**，其存在与否取决于政权的统治成本与组织需求之间的**权衡**。|This collection of materials explores the organizational economic logic behind the rise and fall of grassroots elections by analyzing nearly 40 years of rural data in China. The study argues that when state bureaucratic capacity is insufficient and oversight costs are too high, authoritarian regimes tend to introduce elections to leverage villagers' informational advantages to curb corruption and improve public services. However, elections also come at the cost of weakened vertical control, leading to a decline in the enforcement of policies that run counter to public opinion, such as family planning. As economic growth boosted fiscal revenues, higher-level governments gradually reclaimed village autonomy through strengthened vertical management and technological surveillance. This evolution suggests that elections are viewed as a functional tool within authoritarian systems, the existence of which depends on the trade-off between the regime's governing costs and organizational needs.