Economic development and village elections in rural China

Many observers of Chinese politics suggest that there are certain relationships between economic development and village elections. Using empirical data gathered from a 1993 nationwide survey, this study examines whether economic development is associated in any way with successful elections in Chinese villages. The analysis reveals that the relationship between economic development and village elections appears to be a concave curve: economic wealth increases the likelihood that a village will hold semicompetitive elections for people to choose their leaders, but its impact diminishes as economic wealth increases. Rapid economic development may even delay the process of political development because incumbent leaders can use newly acquired economic resources to consolidate their power by: (1) making peasants more dependent on the village authority; (2) providing incumbent leaders with resources to co‐opt peasants; and (3) providing incumbent leaders with resources to bribe their superiors to ignore the decisions of the central government to introduce competitive elections into Chinese villages.