Elected leaders and collective land: Farmers’ evaluation of village leaders’ performance in rural China

Previous studies on village elections have focused on the election process, but few have examined post-election outcomes related to local land management systems. Land is the most important resource in Chinese villages, but land management and reallocation are the chief responsibility for elected village leaders. Previous studies show that villager attitudes toward the “fairness” of land reallocations and the type of village elections vary across villages. Some villages have an open election/nomination process while other villages have “closed” or unfair elections. We found that openly elected leaders are more accountable to villagers and that their land management decisions do reflect villager preferences for “fair” land reallocation. Our findings are based on a 2000–2001 survey of 34 villages in rural Shaanxi province. Rozelle is also a member of the Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics. We acknowledge the finical support of the Fulbright Fellowship and the University of California, Pacific Rim Research Fellowship. We want to thank the three anonymous reviews as well as Kevin O’Brien and Li Lianjiang for their comments and suggestions. In addition, we want to thank our friends and colleagues at Northwest University, Xian for all their help, collaboration and support. This paper was first presented in Chinese at the “Contemporary Rural Chinese Social Life” conference held at Hong Kong Polytechnic University November 21^st and 22^nd 2002.