Manipulation without Resistance: Consensus Elections in Rural China
Jingping Liu
Abstract:The Chinese Communist Party has been increasing its control over village elections since the early 2010s, yet this move has not triggered any widespread popular resistance. Drawing on ethnographic evidence from village elections held in 2017 in a county in Hunan province, I conceptualize a form of electoral manipulation I term “consensus elections,” in which the Party engineers a pre-electoral consensus with ordinary villagers on whom to select while deterring challenges from village elites. Consensus election… Show more
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