Building institutional rules and procedures: Village election in China

Chinese elections for village leaders have been conducted since 1988, but processes by which elections have been conducted leave room for improvement. This study shows that despite progress made in Chinese village election laws, there exists considerable variation in rules and procedures stemming from vagueness in the laws and in various implementation methods. These issues are addressed and ways are proposed to improve village elections. In particular, an argument is made in favor of standardization and synchronization of village election rules and procedures.