Grassroots Political Reform in Contemporary China

Edited by Elizabeth J. Perry

Edited by Merle Goldman

    Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations

    1. Introduction: Historical Reflections on Grassroots Political Reform in China
    Elizabeth J. Perry and Merle Goldman

    2. Village Elections, Transparency, and Anticorruption:
    Henan and Guangdong Provinces
    Richard Levy

    3. The Implementation of Village Elections and
    Tax-for-Fee Reform in Rural Northwest China
    John James Kennedy

    4. Fiscal Crisis in China's Townships: Causes and Consequences
    Jean C. Oi and Zhao Shukai

    5. Direct Township Elections
    Lianjiang Li

    6. The Struggle for Village Public Goods Provision:
    Informal Institutions of Accountability in Rural China
    Lily L. Tsai

    7. Inadvertent Political Reform via Private Associations:
    Assessing Homeowners' Groups in New Neighborhoods
    Benjamin L. Read

    8. Civil Resistance and Rule of Law in China:
    The Defense of Homeowners' Rights
    Yongshun Cai

    9. "Hope for Protection and Hopeless Choices":
    Labor Legal Aid in the PRC
    Mary E. Gallagher

    10. Is Labor a Political Force in China?
    Ching Kwan Lee

    11. Between Defiance and Obedience:
    Protest Opportunism in China
    Xi Chen

    12. In Search of the Grassroots:
    Hydroelectric Politics in Northwest Yunnan
    Ralph Litzinger

    13. Public Opinion Supervision:
    Possibilities and Limits of the Media in Constraining Local Officials
    Yuezhi Zhao and Sun Wusan

    Notes Contributors Acknowledgments

  • Cover: Grassroots Political Reform in Contemporary China
  • A photo of the author

photo of Merle Goldman

Elizabeth J. Perry is Henry Rosovsky Professor of Government at Harvard University. She is the author of Challenging the Mandate of Heaven: Social Protest and State Power in China.

Merle Goldman is Professor of History, Emerita, at Boston University and Associate of the John K. Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, Harvard University.