Abstract
This chapter examines the level of regime support in urban China. The political system in China has been described as “resilient”. The obvious question is: why has the Chinese regime successfully maintained its rule and proved so resilient in the most populous country in the world? Stability in urban China is indispensable to the level of overall stability in China. On a descriptive level, the key question to be answered is: To what degree does the current regime in China enjoy popular diffuse support? On an analytical level, we would like to find out what factors affect Chinese urban residents’ level of support for the current political system in China? Other than the usual socioeconomic and demographic factors, such as age, gender, income, education and Communist Party membership, this chapter is particularly interested in exploring the relationships between popular satisfaction with local government performance in specific policy areas (such as education, medical care, housing, the social safety net, employment, public safety, transportation, cultural development, and environment), popular satisfaction with local governmental efficiency, attitudes toward official corruption, trust of central and local governments on the one hand and popular regime support on the other.
Parts of this chapter were adapted from my article “Regime Support in Urban China”, published in Asian Survey, Vol. 53, No. 2 (2003), pp. 369–392.
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Notes
- 1.
A representative of this school of thought is Gordon Chang who, famously or infamously, who, in his book The Coming Collapse of China (New York: Random House, 2001), predicted that the Chinese Communist Party would collapse within a decade.
- 2.
See Susan Shirk, China: Fragile Superpower: How China’s Internal Politics Could Derail its Peaceful Rise (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
- 3.
See Andrew Nathan, “Authoritarian Resilience,” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 14, No. 1 (2003), pp. 6–17.
- 4.
On political legitimacy studies inside China, see Bruce Gilley and Heike Holbig, “The Debate on Party Legitimacy in China: A Mixed Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis,” Journal of Contemporary China, Vol. 18, No. 59 (2009), pp. 338–358. Western literature on this subject includes: Xueliang Ding, The Decline of Communism in China: Legitimacy Crisis, 1977–1989 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Gungwu Wang and Yongnian Zheng, eds., Reform, Legitimacy and Dilemmas: China’s Politics and Society (Singapore: World Scientific Press, 2000); Bruce Gilley, The Right to Rule—How States Win and Lose Legitimacy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009); Thomas Heberer and Gunter Schubert, eds., Regime Legitimacy in Contemporary China (London: Routledge Press, 2009); Jie Chen, Popular Political Support in Urban China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004); Vivienne Shue, “Legitimacy Crisis in China?”, in Peter Hays Gries and Stanley Rosen, eds., State and Society in 21st-century China (New York: Routledge Press, 2004), pp. 41–68; Yang Zhong, “Legitimacy Crisis and Legitimization in China,” Journal of Contemporary Asia, Vol. 26, No. 2 (1996), pp. 201–220; and Andre Laliberte and Marc Lanteigne, eds., The Chinese Party-state in the 21st Century: Adaptation and the Reinvention of Legitimacy (London, Routledge Press, 2008).
- 5.
Yongnian Zheng, Discovering Chinese Nationalism in China (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
- 6.
See, for example, David Shambaugh, China’s Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2008); Bruce Dickson, Democratization in China and Taiwan: The Adaptability of Leninist Parties (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), and “Dilemmas of Party Adaptation: The CCP’s Strategies for Survival,” in Peter Hays Gries and Stanley Rosen, eds., State and Society in 21st-century China; and Andrew Nathan, “Authoritarian Resilience”.
- 7.
On CCP’s efforts in recruiting private entrepreneurs in the party, see Bruce Dickson, Red Capitalists in China: The Party, Private Entrepreneurs, and Prospects for Political Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); and “Integrating Wealth and Power in China: The Communist Party’s Embrace of the Private Sector,” China Quarterly, No. 192 (December 2007), pp. 827–854.
- 8.
See Pierre F. Landry, Decentralized Authoritarianism in China: The Communist Party’s Control of Local Elites in the Post-Mao Era (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
- 9.
Samuel Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), pp. 27–28.
- 10.
The following is the list of the surveyed cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chongqing, Changchun, Changsha, Chengdu, Dalian, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Guizhou, Harbin, Haikou, Hangzhou, Hefei, Huhhot, Jinan, Kunming, Lanzhou, Nanchang, Nanjing, Nanning, Ningbo, Qingdao, Shenyang, Shenzhen, Shijiazhuang, Taiyuan, Wuhan, Xian, Xining, Xiamen, Yinchuan, and Zhengzhou.
- 11.
See Roy C. Macridis and Steven L. Burg, Introduction to Comparative Politics: Regimes and Changes (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1991), pp. 9–10.
- 12.
Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics (Garden City, NY: Anchor, 1963).
- 13.
David Easton, A Systems Analysis of Political Life; and “A Reassessment of the Concept of Political Support,” British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 5 (1975), pp. 435–457.
- 14.
Edward N. Muller and Thomas O. Jukam, “On the Meaning of Political Support,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 71, No. 1 (1977), p. 1566.
- 15.
Yang Zhong, “Legitimacy Crisis and Legitimization in China,” p. 214.
- 16.
See, for example, World Values Survey (2000), Variable 153, http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org;
Tianjian Shi, “Cultural Values and Political Trust: A Comparison of the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan,” Comparative Politics, Vol. 33, No. 4 (2001), p. 406; Lianjiang Li, “Political Trust in Rural China,” Modern China, Vol. 30, No. 2 (2004), pp. 228–258; and Asian Barometer Survey (2006), Question 29a, www.asianbarometer.org; and Lianjiang Li, “The Object and Substance of Trust in Central Leaders: Preliminary Evidence from a Pilot Survey” (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Seattle, Washington (September 1–4, 2011).
- 17.
Tianjian Shi, “Cultural Values and Political Trust: A Comparison of the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan,” Comparative Politics, Vol. 33, No. 3, (2001), pp. 401–419.
- 18.
Yang Qing and Wenfang Tang, “Exploring the Sources of Institutional Trust in China: Culture, Mobilization, or Performance?,” Asian Politics and Policy, Vol. 2, No. 3, (2010), pp. 415–436.
- 19.
The question asked in the National Election Studies is: “How much of the time do you think you can trust the government in Washington to do what is right?” See Gabriela Catterberg and Alejandro Moreno, “The Individual Bases of Political Trust: Trends in New and Established Democracies,” International Journal of Public Opinion Research, vol. 18, no. 1, (2005), pp. 31–48.
- 20.
David Easton, “A Reassessment of the Concept of Political Support,” p. 437.
- 21.
See, for example, Seymour Martin Lipset, “Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 53, No. 1 (1959), pp. 69–105; Edward N. Muller and Thomas O. Jukam, “On the Meaning of Political Support;” Edward N. Muller and Carol J. Williams, “Dynamics of Political Support-Alienation,” Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 13, No. 1 (1980), pp. 33–59; Edward N. Muller, Thomas O. Jukam and Mitchell A. Seligson, “Defuse Political Support and Antisystem Political Behavior: A Comparative Analysis,” American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 26, No. 2 (1982), pp. 240–264; and Steven L. Burg and Michael L. Berbaum, “Community, Integration, and Stability in Multinational Yugoslavia,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 83, No. 1 (1989), pp. 535–554.
- 22.
See Roy C. Macridis and Steven L. Burg, Introduction to Comparative Politics: Regimes and Changes; and Steven E. Finkel, Edward N. Muller and Mitchell Seligson, “Economic Crisis, Incumbent Performance and Regime Support: A Comparison of Longitudinal Data from West Germany and Costa Rica,” British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 19 (1989), pp. 329–351.
- 23.
Roy C. Macridis and Steven L. Burg, Introduction to Comparative Politics: Regimes and Changes, p. 9.
- 24.
Jie Chen, Yang Zhong and Jan William Hillard, “The Level and Sources of Popular Support for China’s Current Political Regime,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Vol. 30, No. 1 (1997), p. 59.
- 25.
Jie Chen and Yang Zhong, “Defining the Political System of Post-Deng China: Emerging Public Support for a Democratic Political System,” Problems of Post-Communism, Vol. 45, No. 1 (1998), pp. 30–42; and Yang Zhong, “Democratic Values among Chinese Peasantry: An Empirical Study,” China: An International Journal, Vol. 3, No. 2 (2005), pp. 189–211.
- 26.
See Yang Zhong, “Legitimacy Crisis and Legitimization in China,” Journal of Contemporary Asia, Vol. 26, No. 2 (1996), pp. 201–220.
- 27.
Ibid.
- 28.
See, for example, Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963); Robert Dahl, Polyarchy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971); Ronald Inglehart, “Value Priorities and Socioeconomic Change,” in S. H. Barnes and M. Kaase, eds., Political Action: Mass Participation in Five Western Democracies, pp. 305–342; Donna Bahry, “Politics, Generations, and Change in the USSR,” in James Miller, ed., Politics, Work, and Daily Life in the USSR: A Survey of Former Soviet Citizens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 61–99; Brian Silver, “Political Beliefs of the Soviet Citizens: Sources of Support to Regime Norms”; Ada Finifter and Ellen Mickiewicz, “Redefining the Political System of the USSR: Mass Support for Political Change”; James Gibson, Raymond Duch and Kent Tedin, “Democratic Values and the Transformation of the Soviet Union,” The Journal of Politics, Vol. 54, No. 2 (1992), pp. 329–371; Richard Rose and William Mishler, “Mass Reaction to Regime Change in Eastern Europe: Polarization or Leaders and Laggards,” British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 24 (1994), pp. 159–181; and Ada Finifter, “Attitudes toward Individual Responsibility and Political Reform in the Former Soviet Union,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 90, No. 1 (1996), pp. 138–161.
- 29.
Ada Finifter and Ellen Mickiewicz, “Redefining the Political System of the USSR: Mass Support for Political Change,” p. 864.
- 30.
Alfred Chan and Paul Nesbitt-Larking, “Critical Citizenship and Civil Society in Contemporary China,” p. 308.
- 31.
Jean Lock, “The Effect of Ideology in Gender Role Definition: China as a Case Study,” Journal of Asian And African Studies, Vol. 24, Nos 3–4 (1989), pp. 228–238; and Wen-Lang Li, “Changing Status of Women in the PRC,” in Shao-chuan Leng, ed., Changes in China: Party, State and Society (New York: University Press of America, 1989), pp. 201–224.
- 32.
See J C. Robinson and K. Parris, “The Chinese Special Economic Zones, Labor and Women”.
- 33.
Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture, pp. 380–384.
- 34.
James Gibson, Raymond Duch and Kent Tedin, “Democratic Values and the Transformation of the Soviet Union”; and Arthur Miller, “In Search of Regime Legitimacy”.
- 35.
Brian Silver, “Political Belief of the Soviet Citizen: Source of Support for Regime Norms,” in James Miller, ed., Politics, Work and Daily Life in the USSR: A Survey of Former Soviet Citizens, p. 1010.
- 36.
See Carol Hamrin, “Conclusion: New Trends under Deng Xiaoping and His Successors,” in Merle Goldman, Timothy Cheek and Carol Hamrin, eds., China’s Intellectuals and the State: In Search of a New Relationship (Cambridge, MA: Council of East Asian Studies, 1987), pp. 275–311; Merle Goldman, Sowing the Seeds of Democracy in China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994).
- 37.
Ronald Inglehart, “Values, Objective Needs and Subjective Satisfaction among Western Publics,” Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 9 (1977), pp. 429–458; S. H. Barnes, B.G. Farah and F. Heunks, “Personal Satisfaction,” in S. H. Barnes and M. Kasse eds., Political Action: Mass Participation in Five Western Democracies (Beverly Hill, CA: Sage Publications, 1979); and J.J. Thomassen, “Economic Crisis, Dissatisfaction and Protest,” in Kent Jennings, et al. eds., Continuities in Political Action: A Longitudinal Study of Political Orientation in Three Western Democracies (New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1989), pp. 103–134.
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Zhong, Y. (2018). Political Support in Chinese Cities. In: Political Culture and Participation in Urban China. New Perspectives on Chinese Politics and Society. Palgrave, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6268-1_2
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