Village Elections and Governance? – Qingshan Tan

Date: Tue. March 23rd, 2010, 4:30 pm-6:00 pm

Qingshan Tan
Village Elections and Governance?
Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Village elections have been implemented throughout China for more than a decade. In spite of improvements in the election process and villagers’ increasing awareness of democratic rights, the elections are widely viewed as producing little effect on village governance. Why have village elections remained largely irrelevant to effective self-governance? Tan addresses such questions by examining causal factors, village governance structure, township re-assertiveness over villages, and dual-leadership factors.

Qingshan Tan is Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Political Science at Cleveland State University. His appointments include senior research fellow at the East Asian Institute of National University of Singapore, among others. Tan has published more than 30 academic articles in English and Chinese and is the author of the book, Village Elections in China: Democratizing the Countryside.

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