Policy & Politics • vol 44 • no 2 • 215-34 • © Policy Press 2016 • #PPjnl @policy_politics

Print ISSN 0305 5736 • Online ISSN 1470 8442 • http://dx.doi.org/10.1332/147084414X14024918243748

article
Participatory policy making under
authoritarianism: the pathways of local budgetary
reform in the People’s Republic of China
Yan Xiaojun, xyan@hku.hk,
Xin Ge, gxin@hku.hk
The University of Hong Kong

Citizen participation in policy making is essential in democracies, but there is much less
understanding of the process and substance of it in non-democratic states. Taking local budgetary
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process as an example, this article compares three pathways of participatory reform undertaken
by the communist regime in China, namely the representative pathway, the consultative pathway
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and the transparency pathway. All three are initiated and administered by the local governments,
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but differ in a number of crucial aspects from the level of institutionalisation to the form of state–
citizenry interaction. These three pathways provide directions the Party-state might consider for
nationwide policy reform.

key words participatory reform • authoritarianism • public budget

Introduction
Democracies are built on civic participation; their governance depends upon the
active engagement of citizens in the political processes that allow them to thrive.
As Lester W Milbrath professed, ‘for democracy to flourish, it is essential for citizens
to be interested in, informed about, and active in politics’ (Milbrath, 1965, 142).
Indeed, generations of political scientists have studied the dynamic patterns of civic
participation in democratic societies. Unfortunately, there is much less understanding
of the process and substance of civic engagement in non-democratic states. This gap
must be addressed, especially considering the rise in international influence and the
endurance of the authoritarian regime in the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
Popular political participation in policy making and governance does not only exist
in democratic countries, but can occur in developing nations under authoritarian rule.
Autocratic rulers may choose to promote limited citizen participation in low-risk
policy areas in order to pacify social tension, reign-in corruption, improve financial
accounting, and/or strengthen political legitimacy.This article examines and compares
three styles of participatory reform undertaken by the communist regime of the PRC
in the specific area of local fiscal and budgetary accountability. The three principal
models – namely, the representative, consultative and transparency pathways – are
all managed by the local Party-state with the consent of higher authorities, but take

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 Yan Xiaojun and Xin Ge

remarkably different forms. Using the local budgetary process as their touchstone,
the authors address the following questions: Why does an authoritarian regime seek
to attract citizens to participate in policy making? What participatory models are
promoted by the Party-state? What are the implications of these reforms on China’s
long-term political future? Indeed, these ‘pathways’ illuminate some potential
directions the PRC regime might adopt if and when a more systematic and large-
scale participatory reform is to be nationally implemented.

Participatory budgeting in perspective

Participatory institutions were widely adopted across the world during the 1980s
and 1990s with the last wave of democratisation in Latin America (Abers, 2000;
Avritzer, 2002; Baiocchi, 2005; Santos, 1998). Over the past three decades, regional
and municipal governments within those countries have served as testing grounds
for participatory political reforms (Peruzzotti and Selee, 2009, 3–4). Participatory
budgeting is widely considered to be ‘the best-known and most widely disseminated
participatory institution’ to emerge from these young republics (Wampler, 2007, 2). It
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was first practised over two decades ago by the Brazilian Workers’ Party (Partido dos
Trabalhadores) in the city of Porto Alegre (Abers, 1998, 511), and has spread widely
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since.1 In established democracies, participatory budgeting also plays a significant role

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in facilitating popular participation in policy processes. For example, in New Zealand,

it has been implemented since 1989 in the form of an ‘annual planning process’, which
provides an opportunity for citizens to comment on a council’s planned expenditure
in the coming year (Cheyne and Comrie, 2002).
Despite its history there is not yet a universally accepted definition for it. 2
Participatory budgeting broadly refers to ‘a mechanism (or process) through which the
population decides on, or contributes to decisions made on, the destination of all or
part of the available public resources’ (UN-Habitat, 2004, 20). Goldfrank summarises
the procedural definitions of participatory budgeting as ‘a process that is open to
any citizen who wants to participate, combines direct and representative democracy,
involves deliberation, [and] redistributes resources toward the poor’ (Goldfrank, 2007,
92). Santos, on the other hand, stresses the political implications, suggesting that it is

a form of public government that tries to break away from the authoritarian
and patrimonialist tradition of public policies, resorting to the direct
participation of the population in the different phases of budget preparation
and implementation, with special concern for the definition of priorities for
the distribution of investment resources. (Santos, 1998, 467)

Earlier scholarship contends that participatory budgeting may help to empower

the citizenry of developing countries. Abers indicates that participatory budgeting
contributes to the development of civil society organisations, helping to generate
social capital (Abers, 1998). Nylen (2002) demonstrates how participatory budgeting
stimulates democratic activism among the non-elites, whose participation in the
budgeting process is contrasted against a typical model of representative democracy
dominated by political elites and professional politicians. Agreeing with Abers’s
argument, Baiocchi takes a step further and inquires how and why participatory
budgeting in Porto Alegre can foster citizenship and empower the poorest of the

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poor. He finds that ‘the discussions of needs and the power to demand accountability
at these meetings constitute a language of common interests and rights, for which
the [PB] serves as an intermediary’ (Baiocchi, 2005, 111).
Moreover, Wampler (2007) notes that participatory budgeting may also enhance
government accountability. He argues that the extent of accountability depends on
the level of interaction between officials and citizens, so that vertical accountability
can be achieved through means such as increased fiscal transparency, more civic
consultations, and the appointment of more civilian budgeting delegates, and so on.
Indeed participatory budgeting, like other institutions of civic engagement,‘provide[s]
citizens with the opportunity to work directly with government officials and their
fellow citizens in formal, state-sanctioned public venues, allowing them to exercise
voice and vote in decision making processes to produce public policy solutions that
may resolve intense social problems’ (Wampler, 2007, 1). As it addresses the most
essential and contentious area of public policy making, participatory budgeting offers
an effective vehicle to promote civic engagement, public consultation, and democratic
sociability in the developing world. Nevertheless, the Brazilian model of participatory
budgeting might not be easily replicated in the global South. Seekings (2013) notes
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that participatory budgeting is shaped by both political society and civil society –
only when political society is weak in terms of both redistribution (of resources,
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and sometimes dignity) and cooptation of dissenting civic activists and civil society
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‘has the capacity and will to engage with the state’, can participatory budgeting be
effective and successful (359–60).
Originating from Brazil, participatory budgeting as a concept and practice in
governance has been spread to many countries around the world. The existing
literature has explored extensively its noticeable potential in empowering civil
society organisations, the disadvantaged social groups and the political ‘non-elites’ in
the budget making process, as well as in bolstering government accountability and
improving the quality of governance in the developing world. Due, however, to the
variance of social, economic and political contexts across nation states, especially the
varied capacity and political will of both local states and societies around the globe,
how to emulate and adapt the ‘Brazilian model’ in other parts of the developing
world remains a major challenge in the further proliferation of this political and
policy practice.

Participatory budgeting in post-Mao China

China’s Communist leaders also face profound governance challenges despite
overseeing three decades of dramatic economic growth. Incidents of mass unrest
increased 50 per cent over a five-year period, from about 60,000 reported cases
in 2006 to an estimated 90,000 in 2011.3 Likewise, episodes of violent civil unrest
sparked by diverse causes continue to ignite. Given the increasingly severe social
tensions and a keen desire to guard overall political stability, the Chinese Communist
Party’s (hereinafter ‘CCP’) central leadership has begun to endorse the people’s ‘rights
to know about, participate in, express their views on and supervise government
administration in the sunshine’.4 Participatory budgeting is one of many political pilot
experiments the CCP is testing to identify more adaptive and systemic institutional
changes.

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 Yan Xiaojun and Xin Ge

In an effort to enhance regime legitimacy, Beijing has provided local cadres with
both incentives and pressure to enhance citizen engagement in a policy process
overwhelmingly dominated by Party elites. Local governments have been exploring
a series of models that facilitate citizen engagement in public policy processes over
the past decade, hoping to achieve more transparent governance and public input
into the policies that affect their daily lives. The academic literature considering the
participatory side of China’s local budgetary reforms has thus largely focused upon the
deliberative component embedded in such processes (Fishkin et al, 2010).Attempting
to frame Chinese participatory budgeting in a general theoretical context, He and
Warren (2011) have coined the term ‘authoritarian deliberation’ to describe these
processes within a ‘deliberative authoritarianism’ regime (269).
Scholars also notice that local participatory reforms in China adopt different
pathways and goals. For example, He (2011) summarises three types of logic present
in a series of participatory budgeting cases, namely: (1) administrative logic (that
is, gearing the system toward the improvement of administrative effectiveness), (2)
political reform logic (that is, gearing the system toward the rejuvenation of the local
legislature as a policy making body), and (3) citizen empowerment logic. Along this
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line, Wu and Wang (2011) distinguish the Wenling model, which focuses on citizen
deliberation, and the Wuxi model, which focuses on the empowerment of citizens
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in policy processes.
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This article examines state-directed participatory reforms to local budgetary

processes in China. Drawing upon earlier scholarship, this article adopts a comparative
approach to evaluate the various types of participatory reforms made to the local
budgetary process under the encouragement of the CCP.Three case studies featuring
different approaches are provided, namely the county of Qingxian and the cities
of Wenling and Jiaozuo. Figure 1 shows the three locales on the map of PRC. In
Qingxian, the local Party-state created a formal representative institution to facilitate
citizen engagement. In Wenling, citizen engagement is promoted by casual and ad
hoc consultative meetings that emphasise the substantial deliberation of budgetary
proposals among stakeholders. In Jiaozuo, the local government promotes the
transparent publication of budgetary information. These cases thus illustrate three
separate models of state-directed citizen participation in public policy which we
will refer to as the representative, consultative and transparency pathways. Their main
features will be described and compared in greater detail herein, before discussing
their implications to China’s twenty-first century political reform.

Qingxian: the representative pathway

Qingxian is a county located in Hebei Province on the North China Plain. It has a
population of approximately 400,000, covering 968 square kilometres. In terms of
economic development, Qingxian is at the average level in the province and relies
on agriculture and light industries (Yan, 2012, 354). In fact, representative institutions
known as village assemblies (cunmin huiyi) or village representative assemblies (cunmin
daibiao huiyi) were important to village governance before 1949, especially on the
North China plain. After the CCP took power that year, the traditional practices
of village governance were adjusted to reflect the absolute power of the People’s
Commune (renmin gongshe), that is, the extension of the Party-state from its core in
Beijing to the smallest, local level.The People’s Commune system eventually collapsed

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 Participatory policy making under authoritarianism

Figure 1: Qingxian, Jiaozuo and Wenling on the map of PRC

 Beijing

Qingxian

Jiaozuo

Shanghai 

Wenling
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in the early 1980s with the winding-down of the Maoist regime, and an ostensibly0 Miles 500

dual-power system took its place. While the new structure comprised both a Village
Administrative Committee (cunmin weiyuanhui) and a CCP branch (dang zhibu), the
latter remained supreme and yielded no place for citizen participation in local policy-
making processes, including the budget.5
Not surprisingly, new local governance crises began haunting China’s rural areas
in the 1990s. As the CCP decided to shift priority from fostering revolutionary mass
movements to promoting socialist industrialisation and urbanisation, the countryside
witnessed a drastic decrease in the financial resources allocated from the central budget
(Figure 2). Moreover, development funds have been distributed unevenly to various
levels of government through the Party-state’s hierarchical apparatus, especially to
urban centres. The result is that Chinese villages must rely on themselves to tax and
spend the financial resources necessary for local governance.
A typical Chinese village had three major financial resources for its public budget in
the late 1990s: (1) a small amount of the central agricultural tax passed to the village
level through transfer payments originating in Beijing, (2) local levies established
and collected by the village government, and (3) the profits of the town and village
enterprises (hereinafter ‘TVEs’) over which the villages had varied forms of control.
Unfortunately, this tripartite system was abused. The local levies soon became
intolerable burdens for the peasants due to the frequent use of coercion in the
collection process, a practice that came to threaten both the legitimacy and stability of
the local governments. In light of this, the Central Government not only banned most
local levies, but also gradually abolished the central agricultural tax. Furthermore, a
large number of collectively owned TVEs were privatised in the ‘deepening of market
reform’ period in the early twenty-first century. In Hebei Province (where Qianxian
is located) the percentage of collectively-owned TVEs among all enterprises dropped

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 Yan Xiaojun and Xin Ge

Figure 2: The percentage of central budgetary funds allocated for the support of
agriculture in the national budget from 1978 to 2006
%

11.00

10.50

10.00

9.50

9.00

8.50

8.00

7.50

7.00
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6.50

6.00
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1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
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Notes:
(1) This figure has not been published in the State Statistics Yearbook since 2007.
(2) The special funding allocated for the nationwide rural health cooperative insurance project
experimentation scheme was excluded from the 2006 data.

Source: Zhongguo tongji nianjian [2007 State Statistics Yearbook of China], Beijing: China Statistics Press,
2007, 282 (Form 8-6).

from 14.4 per cent in 1996 to around 1 per cent in 2004. For some time these moves
almost entirely deprived village governments of their income.
To solve this grave problem, the Qianxian’s CCP Committee decided to promote
political reform designed to revive the power of the village councils – the traditional
representative institutions of Chinese villages that had facilitated civic engagement
for centuries. Every village in the county was required to produce a village council
through free elections, with each council member to represent between 10 and
15 households. The village council’s power was also rejuvenated. According to the
‘Regulations on the Operation of Village Organisations of Qingxian’ (Qingxian cunji
zuzhi gongzuo guize), the village council was deemed the organisation with supreme
power for decision making and supervision at the village level, endowed with powers
including to approve budgets, collect fees and levies, allocate farmland and create
housing regulations. It is also equipped with the power and means to monitor the
financial activities of the village government on a daily basis (GOPCQ, 2005, 21).
Furthermore, the free election process has resulted in a minority of CCP-member
councillors (that is, less than 40 per cent) (ODPCQ, 2006), whereas CCP membership
was a prerequisite before the reforms. Indeed, the formal relationship is now reversed.
A Qingxianese candidate for local Party branch leadership must be an elected member
of the village council. If the incumbent Party leader failed to retain his post in the
village council election, he must immediately resign the Party leadership.

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 Participatory policy making under authoritarianism

Village council procedure is highly institutionalised as well. Regular meetings are

easy to schedule because each village council has an average of only 18 or 19 members.
They are held on a fixed date each month, and the village council itself may call
for special sessions if more than one-third of the members support such a motion.
Right after a village council election, the new members will hold their first session
to elect a chairperson to manage subsequent assemblies. Proposals prepared by the
Village Administrative Committee (that is, the village executive) to be discussed in
council must be distributed to the councillors in advance.This provides them enough
time to familiarise themselves with the issues before debate. Each proposal must be
voted on individually and obtain a two-thirds majority of the total votes in order to
pass. Once a proposal does pass, it is written into a record on which each councillor
must apply his or her personal seal. The resolution will then be publicly announced
and implemented by the village government. Furthermore, the village government
is required to report its work to the village council’s monthly assembly. A special
standing group set up by the village council is charged with financial oversight of
the village government, and must also make a monthly report.
The village council has not only been able to impose substantial checks on the
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usually absolute power of the CCP, but also plays an important, proactive role in local
decision making processes. It provides a place for citizens to debate issues related to
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public budgets and forge negotiated compromises, which significantly facilitates local
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governance. Figure 3 illustrates the village council system decision making process.
In sum, the villagers of Qingxian participate in the local budgeting process through
a formal representative institution. A high level of institutionalisation is reflected in
the procedures for electing councillors and village council conduct, that body being
legally empowered as the ultimate broker of village finances.The resuscitated village
council has become a new approach for an authoritarian regime to avoid ossification
by mobilising popular participation in the local policy-making process and resolving
governance problems at the lowest level of the body politic.

Wenling: the consultative pathway

Wenling is a county-level city located on the southeast coast of Zhejiang Province. It
is populated by over 1.1 million people and covers about 920 square kilometres.The
first Chinese rural cooperative shareholding enterprise was founded here in 1983,
helping Wenling to become one of the first places to develop a substantial market
economy during the early reform era (Chen, 2012, 3).Today, the city is highly market-
oriented with a thriving private economy. Private enterprises account for over 90
per cent of all local registered businesses, which are pillared by five major industries:
motorcycle and automobile fittings, electro-mechanics, shoe and hat plastics, aquatic
food and construction materials (Zhang, 2003, 22–3).
The local economy has benefited the socioeconomic status of the city population
at a faster pace than the national average. Figure 4 shows a comparison between the
national average per capita GDP and that of Wenling. While these developments are
generally good, the development of a private economy has also led to deep divisions
between antagonistic social strata such as private entrepreneurs and labor, resulting in a
drastic diversification of interests (Mu and Chen, 2005, 19–20). Private entrepreneurs
demand autonomous decision making for their factories’ production and operation,
hoping that the government might do more to guide industrial development and

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 Yan Xiaojun and Xin Ge

Figure 3: The procedures of the village council in Qianxian

Phase I
Produce a village council through freeelection
Election (one in every 10-15 households)

Proposals distributed to the councilors

before the formal session

Deliberation and debate on individual

reports in the meeting

Phase II
Vote on the proposal
Decision-making process
Passed Unpassed

Officially recorded Abandoned

with each councilor’s
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personal seal
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Resolutions announced implemented

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Standing group in charge of financial

Phase III supervision on the implementation of the
Implementation resolutions to the village council

provide services rather than instructing and interfering. Meanwhile, workers complain
of fundamental labour problems such as excessively long working hours, poor safety
conditions, low pay, and unprotected rights.6 Wenling’s growing private sector and
the socioeconomic cleavage and political tension associated with it have grown more
intense in the early twenty-first century.
The conditions described in Wenling are not very different from those in many
cities across China. National economic development and urbanisation have prompted
enormous construction projects involving large investments. These construction
projects can last for over five years and have a permanent negative impact on the
environment and people’s livelihoods. Therefore, the public often demands a say in
the construction project permitting process (Wang, 2011, 47–8). To reduce social
tension and address such popular grievances, it has become increasingly common
for the local Party-state to provide an institutional channel through which citizens
can more actively engage in policy-making processes.
The Zhejiang Provincial CCP Committee decided to ‘conduct an agricultural
and rural modernisation education programme for the whole province’ in response
to a June 1999 request from the central leadership.7 This educational initiative took
the form of an ‘agricultural and rural modernisation construction forum’ (nongye
nongcun xiandaihua jianshe luntan) in Wenling that was first implemented in Songmen
Township on 25 June 1999. Over 150 volunteers participated in the meeting and
discussed topics ranging from the town’s investment environment and construction
plans to neighbourhood disputes and the price of liquefied gas. A total of four public

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 Participatory policy making under authoritarianism

90,000

Figure
80,000
4: A Comparison of National Per Capita GDP (RMB yuan) and the Per Capita GDP of
Wenling from 1991 to 2010
70,000

60,000
Wenling GDP
50,000 per capita

40,000

30,000
National GDP
per capita
20,000

10,000

0
2000
2001
2002
2003

2008
2009
2004
2005

2010
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1995
1997
1998
1999

2006
2007
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Source: Taizhou tongji nianjian, 2011 [Taizhou Statistical Yearbook 2011], Beijing: China Statistics Press,
47; Zhongguo tongji nianjian, 2011 [China Statistical Yearbook 2011], Beijing: China Statistics Press, 44
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forums were held in the second half of 1999. Over 600 people participated, and out
of 110 questions raised in the forums 84 were answered directly on the spot while
26 others were taken under consideration (Gao, 2004, 30).
After the first ad hoc forum, the Wenling Party Committee encouraged townships
to learn from the Songmen experience. Similar practices were promoted under names
such as ‘public feeling through train’ (minqing zhitong che), ‘convenience service desk’
(bianmin fuwutai), ‘public feeling consultation’ (minqing kentan), ‘farmer’s platform’
(nongmin jiangtai), and ‘village democracy day’ (nongcun minzhuri).To make the format
of these forums more consistent, these various consultation channels were harmonised
and entitled ‘democratic consultation meetings’ (DCM) in May 2001 (Mu and Chen,
2005, 82–3).
Three official documents were subsequently issued by the Wenling Party Committee
between 2001 and 2004 to establish the framework of the new ad hoc consultation
forums. Document No 35 (issued on 12 June 2001) expanded the scope of
democratic consultation from townships, villages and enterprises to include residential
communities, grassroots public institutions, Party and government organisations and
mass organisations. Document No 55 (issued on 9 October 2002) introduced the
process, which was formally refined in Document No 7 (issued on 9 September
2004). Figure 5 illustrates this ad hoc democratic consultation process. Between 1999
and 2005, 190 DCMs were held at the township level and 1,190 at the village level.
400,000 people (35 per cent of the city population) participated by reportedly raising
over 38,000 opinions (Sun, 2009, 118).
DCMs were incorporated into the local budgeting process in 2005. The practices
adopted in Zeguo and Xinhe Townships of Wenling represent two distinct
implementation pathways. In Zeguo, a system called ‘deliberative polling’ is applied
in which members of the public were randomly selected to participate in budget
deliberations. These representatives are usually provided with a questionnaire survey
and asked to choose 10 to 12 out of 30 possible projects by rating them before and

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 Yan Xiaojun and Xin Ge

Figure 5: The participatory budgeting process in Wenling

Phase I Democratic Consultation Meetings with citizens

Preliminary review to review the budget
before the LPC session
The Government reports the budget to LPC delgates;
the Finance and Economics Sub-committee reports
the deliberation result from Phase I

Discussion between the Government

and the delegates

Joint meeting of the Party Committee, LPC

prsidium and the government to amend the budget
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Five or more delegates to raise resolutions for

Phase II the revision of the budget
Budget review
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in the LPC session Debates about the resolutions in the whole

congress and vote on the resolution

Passed Unpassed

The Government The resolution is not

amends the budget to be considered in
according to the the amendment
resolution

Delegates vote on the amended budget

Phase III The government reports the implementation of

Supervision the budget to the Finance and Economics
after the LPC session Sub-committee every quarter of a year

Note: The graph is based on the Implementation Methods of Xinhe Township’s Budgetary Democratic
Consultation (trial) approved in 2006 by Xinhe Township People’s Congress.

after deliberation.The post-deliberation survey is used to form the final list of projects,
which is then voted on by the local People’s Congress. The funding allocated to
these projects accounts for about 30 per cent of the total budget (He, 2008, 167–9).
In Xinhe, however, citizen participation is a two-step process.The first stage resembles
what is practised in Zeguo. Before the Local People’s Congress (hereinafter ‘LPC’)
plenum session is convened, its Finance and Economics Sub-committee (caijing
xiaozu) organises three groups to discuss the local budget. The three groups will
represent various economic sectors including industry, agriculture and social issues.
In 2012, the number of deliberation groups was increased to 12 according to issue
area (Peng, 2012). Citizen participants attend these group meetings on a voluntary

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 Participatory policy making under authoritarianism

basis and their discussions are summarised by group leaders and presented to the
LPC. The LPC delegates then deliberate on the budgetary items produced by these
group meetings and make the final decisions. Figure 5 demonstrates the workflow
of citizen participation in Wenling’s local budgeting process.
In sum, by adding ad hoc local deliberative consultations to the formal legislative
agenda of the local Party-state, the Wenling Model represents a semi-institutionalised
pathway for participatory policy making in China.The participants, either voluntary
or invited, take an active part in budget deliberations and their opinions are taken
into serious consideration by the LPC in its formal legislative session. Nevertheless,
this system suffers from two acute disadvantages as compared to the Qingxian model:
the people are not the final decision-makers and this process is not protected by the
PRC state legal framework.

Jiaozuo: the transparency pathway

Jiaozuo has thrived on coal mining since the Tang Dynasty, and experienced dramatic
economic growth under the Seventh and Eighth FiveYear Plans (1986–90 and 1991–5,
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respectively) (Gao, 1993, 489). Under the Ninth FiveYear Plan (1996–2000), however,
Jiaozuo encountered the same problems that befell many industrial cities with a natural
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resource-based economy, including inefficient energy consumption, heavy pollution

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and lack of sustainable growth policies. The local government compounded these
problems by countenancing severe budget deficits, scandalous accounting fraud and
endemic corruption, which became reflected in intractable social tensions (Chen
and Wang, 2009).
The imbalance between revenue and expenditure was particularly disturbing.
Different government departments enjoyed an arbitrary power to use public funding.
A significant number of extra-budgetary accounts (xiao jinku, or private coffers
outside the formal accounting system) existed. Most official funding was allocated
according to the ‘base’ (jishu), and the departments had autonomy and flexibility over
that base. Thereafter, a ‘second allocation’ (erci fenpei) occurred in which the Finance
Bureau divided funds according to various blocks (such as education, health and
social welfare) for distribution to the departments with relevant oversight. Millions
of RMB sat idle in the coffers of some departments, while other immense funding
pools were controlled by a few individuals or, in at least one case, by a single senior
official (Jiaozuo Finance Bureau, 2009). The overall financial management system
was inefficient, chaotic and incoherent.
The municipal government decided to address these problems by launching a
unified accounting system and appointing independent auditors to scrutinise specific
agencies under its jurisdiction. Beginning in 1999, this ‘accountant appointment
system’ (kuaiji weipai zhi) was established at the municipal, county, township and
village levels. A number of other significant financial reforms followed in the decade
ahead including department budgeting, government procurement, enhanced financial
supervision, a consolidated treasury and strengthened management of non-tax revenue.
These reforms provided a solid foundation for the development of responsible public
financing in Jiaozuo (Shen, 2010, 16–19).
These reforms achieved a new climax in January 2008, when the municipal
government issued ‘Guanyu wanshan gonggong caizheng tixi tuijin hexie Jiaozuo jianshe de
yijian’ (‘Opinions on improving public finance system and promoting the construction

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 Yan Xiaojun and Xin Ge

of a harmonious Jiaozuo,’ hereinafter ‘Opinions’). The Opinions included a decision

to reveal local budgetary information to the general public. Since then, the local
government’s efforts in facilitating and promoting citizen participation have focused
overwhelmingly on the transparency of local fiscal and budgetary information.
Disclosure via the Internet, television, and newspaper has become the primary means
of raising social awareness.The major online platform for transmission is the ‘Jiaozuo
finance portal’ (Jiaozuo caizheng wang), which includes the Finance and Economy
Sand Table (caijing shapan) as well as the Forum for Public Opinion (minqing tongdao).
The launch of the Finance and Economy Sand Table has been deemed the most
important move in increasing the transparency of public budgets. Supported by
modern data mining and statistical analysis techniques, this system presents very
detailed information on public finance. It includes comprehensive statistics on
government accounts, department budgets, official payrolls, dual budgets (fushi yusuan),
individual danwei accounts, subsidies for welfare programmes (huimin butie), and the
office, travelling and entertainment expenses of specific agencies (Shen, 2010, 32 and
37–46). Indeed, it was originally intended to serve as a platform for internal fiscal
management (PPRCSUFE, 2010). Making it public was a bold, unprecedented move
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for a municipal government to make.

Government expenditure is also published via several other media. Citizens may
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visit the Financial Service Hall (caizheng fuwu dating) in person to examine the
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entire government budget in detail. Hard copies disclosing details of administrative

examinations and approvals, government procurement, property transactions, auctions
of public properties, and accountant appointments are available to explore (Shen,
2011). The municipal government also broadcasts a local television programme
entitled ‘Public Finance and Citizen Life’ (gonggong caizheng yu baixing shenghuo).This
programme is broadcast via television as well as on giant LED screens set up in public
areas such as the People’s Square, local train stations and government offices. This
television show regularly discloses updated information on financial expenditures
related to people’s livelihoods (Nanfang zhoumo [Southern Weekly], 29 October 2009).
Although budgetary information is published via many channels, there are few
means for the citizenry to monitor implementation and provide feedback. Indeed,
the whole process is designed and promoted by the municipal government, resulting
in a one-way, top-down flow of information. Citizens are only tacit participants;
the extent of their actual participation is presumably low and their policy making
power appears negligible.Yet, this model does appear to be in compliance with the
current Budget Law of the PRC (Amendments),8 which regulates the disclosure of
budgetary information after gaining local LPC approval. In sum, Jiaozuo sponsors a
commendable disclosure and transparency regime which has had a positive impact
on budgetary policy making, but is ‘participatory’ in only a passive sense.

Comparison
The three styles of participatory budgeting reforms described above share many
similarities. All are endorsed and directed by the same authoritarian Party-state,
implemented by the local political and economic elites, driven by endogenous
communal demands, and seek to improve governance and enhance political legitimacy.
They differ, however, in a number of crucial aspects which define them as different

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Table 1: Comparison of the three pathways of state-directed citizen participation in the

PRC
Representative Consultative model Transparency model
model
Means of engagement Formal Ad hoc deliberative Transparency regime
representation consultation
Level of institutionalisation Institutionalised Semi- Government-led
(High) institutionalised (Low)
(Medium)
Interaction between High; two-way High; two-way Low; one-way
government and
citizenry
Composition of participants All eligible adult Voluntary The general public
voters participants or
invited attendees
Citizen influence in policy Substantial Medium Minimum
making
Legality, if measured against Strong Weak Medium
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current laws
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reformist models that outline a variety of possible future approaches.Table 1 illustrates

a comparison of the three pathways of local budgetary reform.
The most significant difference that distinguishes the three pathways is the disparate
means of citizen participation. In Qingxian, citizens participate in the local budgeting
process through a formal representative institution created and empowered by the
Party-state. It is formal, highly institutionalised, regulated by established rules, and
conforms to the state’s legal framework. In Wenling, citizen participation is realised
through an informal arrangement of deliberative consultations. This arrangement is
less institutionalised than that of Qingxian because the forums are held on an ad hoc
basis for specific budgetary purposes and without fixed membership, that is, they
were never established as a formal component of the governance structure or formal
decision making procedures of the ruling Party-state.9 In Jiaozuo, citizen participation
in the local budgeting process is important but indirect. A programme of deep
transparency has been endorsed by the Party-state which seems to consider publicity
an important check or balance on government spending, although there is no formal
means for the public to exercise it. Indeed, public influence may only be exerted
through public opinion, the mass media, or complaint or petition to the Party-state.
The actual empowerment of the citizenry under this approach is extremely limited.
The second difference lies in the level of institutionalisation.At one end, the Qingxian
Village Council is a formal, representative institution for legislative policy making,
circumscribed by rules promulgated in the Organic Law of the Villagers Committees. It
functions as a local legislature, in which democratically elected representatives with
ultimate decision making power deliberate budgetary issues.This model is thus highly
institutionalised.Wenling, on the other hand, retains largely informal, ad hoc processes
which (although they may enjoy some customary status after a decade of practice)
remain largely under the discretion of the local Party-state. Citizen participation in
this consultation pathway is semi-institutionalised at best, presenting a middle road.

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 Yan Xiaojun and Xin Ge

At the other end, Jiaozuo’s fiscal transparency is implemented by the local authorities
and codified in a couple of documents issued by low-ranking municipal Party-state
agencies. Despite the voluntary publication of comprehensive budgetary information,
there is no institutionalised channel for the general public to proactively participate
in the budgetary process.While public opinion is apparently viewed as an important
check on government excess, the level of institutionalisation is low.
The third difference is the interaction between the local Party-state and the citizenry. This
interaction may be observed from the dual perspectives of direction and intensity.
In Qingxian, elected representatives participate in the budgeting process through
the village council, where they deliberate, debate and decide upon each budgetary
item with the advice of the village executives.The level of state-citizenry interaction
in this quasi-democratic process is high, and the consultative flow runs vertically
in both directions. Although the citizens of Wenling may only participate in ad hoc
policy forums, the intensity of government-citizen interaction taking place in the
discussion sessions is actually very high (and occasionally tense). Fruitful discussions,
heated debates and thrilling scenes have been documented.10 Again, the consultative
flow runs vertically in both directions, albeit at the discretion of the local authorities.
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Meanwhile, Jiaozuo’s transparency pathway illustrates a top-down, non-intensive

relationship.While the government uses a broad array of channels to publish financial
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information, the general public has limited means to provide feedback.The disclosure
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regime remains at the government’s discretion, and a very low level of vertical
interaction is apparent from this pathway.
The fourth difference lies in the composition and attributes of participants. All eligible
voters are theoretically participants in the formal representation of the Qingxian village
council. It encompasses all adult citizens of the village, making composition broad
and inclusive.This contrasts with Wenling-style consultation, where the government
claims that all may partake but actual participation is limited to volunteers, self-
appointed ‘representatives’, or invited attendees. Those whose interests are more
closely affected by the issues at hand are understandably more willing to volunteer,
and so the representation may suffer an intrinsic selection-bias and not serve all
quarters of society. In Jiaozuo, like Qingxian, the entire general populace is supposed
to be included. Due to the low level of institutionalisation and one-way, top-down
information flow, however, it is difficult (if not futile) to identify the number and
characteristics of representative participants. Furthermore, education levels and
exposure to mass media may further bias the composition of participants under the
transparency pathway toward those enjoying higher socio-economic status. Because
citizens’ responses to the transparency scheme are unknown due to the low and
informal level of feedback, the Jiaozuo transparency pathway does not guarantee
informed or effective citizen engagement.
The fifth area of distinction lies in the level of citizen power in the policy-making
process. The representative pathway provides participating citizens the most power.
Village councillors in Qingxian are democratically elected and enjoy ultimate
collective decision making authority in local budgeting. Through discussion, debate
and formal voting in a representative institution, the elected councillors may veto
financial proposals made by the local Party branch or the village executives. At the
other end, under the transparency pathway, the citizens of Jiaozuo are passive observers
of the government’s budgetary and fiscal information.Without a formal institution to
support interplay between government officials and private citizens, the latter’s power

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 Participatory policy making under authoritarianism

to influence local policy making remains minimal. Wenling’s consultative model, as

usual, presents a middle option. Despite the ad hoc nature and unelected nature of
the public budget forums, voluntary engagement is at least protected by a customary,
albeit informal, political arrangement. Furthermore, public opinion is heard and taken
into serious consideration by the government, giving the citizenry an informal but
important voice in the budgeting process.
Last but not least, a difference lies in the level of legality, as measured against the
incumbent legal framework of the PRC. Qingxian’s representative pathway is
guaranteed under the Organic Law of the Village Committees as issued by the National
People’s Congress in 1987 and revised in 1998. Detailed clauses regulate the
election and functioning of village councils. Although this law has never been fully
implemented anywhere in China, Qingxian’s decision to revive the village council
institution is in apparent conformity with the law and therefore enjoys the strongest
legal basis among the three models. Jiaozuo’s transparency pathway is also loosely
based in national law, but in a more tenuous manner. A provision of the national
Budget Law was amended in 2012 to require that ‘budget, budget adjustment, and
final accounts approved by the People’s Congress or the Standing Committee of the
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People’s Congress at the corresponding levels should be immediately disclosed to

the public, except the contents related to state secrets.’11 This broad statement does
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specify how information should be disclosed or in what way the general public can
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participate in the budgeting process; thus, local Party-states like Jiaozuo that choose to
build on this provision must innovate their own procedures without a concrete legal
foundation. Finally, the Wenling consultative pathway incorporates a modest amount
of deliberative democracy into the local budgeting process without any formal basis.
There is no national law regulating this practice and every step must be validated
by documents issued by the county-level Party-state, whose rank is relatively low in
the ruling CCP hierarchy.

Conclusion
Popular political participation in policy making and governance is not restricted to
democratic countries, but can also flourish in developing nations under authoritarian
rule. This article examines and compares the local participatory budgetary reforms
undertaken by the ruling communist regime in the PRC over the past decade. The
three principal models – namely, the representative pathway of Qingxian, consultative
pathway of Wenling and transparency pathway of Jiaozuo – were all initiated and
directed by the local Party-state with central consent and similar aims, but they
have taken remarkably different forms. The models demonstrate distinct patterns
of limited participatory policy making that may be undertaken in an authoritarian
political system. In a sense, the three pathways also illuminate the potential direction
the PRC regime might follow if it were to implement more systematic, larger-scale
participatory reforms. Such reforms could help the CCP to adapt more efficiently to
a rapidly changing domestic and international environment, and ultimately prevent
the country’s autocratic political system from collapsing.
Given the trends of growing apathy and distrust in citizen-state engagement in
Western democracies, China’s local budgetary reforms are particularly illuminating
for scholarly understanding of the power of citizen participation.As Dalton states,‘[c]
itizens in nearly all advanced industrial democracies are increasingly skeptical towards

229
 Yan Xiaojun and Xin Ge

politicians, political parties, and political institutions’ (2004, 191). Dalton thus opines
that the challenge to Western democracies today ‘comes from democracy’s own
citizens, who have grown…disillusioned about how the democratic process functions’
(2004, 1). The local participatory reforms described in this article present a different
landscape, however.Whether we consider the representative institutions in Qingxian
or the deliberative forums in Wenling, citizens of the PRC are demonstrating a high
level of enthusiasm for participating in the local policy process and a strong degree of
trust in newly available participatory institutions and channels. This enthusiasm and
trust have, in turn, facilitated citizen engagement in the larger political system and
strengthened the political foundations of the incumbent regime, and may also have
helped to improve the quality of local governance. Pateman suggests that ‘in poor
countries [citizen participation] can help improve governance, and in rich countries
it can bolster the legitimacy of the present system’ (2012, 15). In the PRC, local
participatory reforms have indeed given a voice to those most directly affected by
public policy, facilitated public learning, promoted active citizenship and thus increased
citizens’ trust in the local government. Especially for local governments in other parts
of the world where fiscal austerity measures are being imposed and the people demand
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‘a Plan B for local government which is focused less on implementing austerity and
more on stimulating growth and building socially productive relationships’ (Lowndes
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and McCaughie, 2013, 56), the Chinese experiences on citizen participation may be
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particularly meaningful and suggestive.

Two factors, however, raise doubts over the sustainability of the new civic activism
and political trust nurtured by grassroots participatory reforms in China. First, these
reforms have opened up a new space for citizen engagement in the larger political
system, which is still authoritarian in nature. As Eisinger (1973) famously argued,
‘systems characterized by a mix of open and closed factors’ may provide a more
favourable context for citizen activism than completely open or closed systems. Given
the temporal limitations of this favourable context in the PRC, the sustainability of
such activism as the regime undergoes transformation over time remains uncertain.
Second, according to both the World Values Survey and European Values Survey,
popular political trust is negatively affected by post-materialism, political radicalism,
permissiveness towards corruption and income in certain countries (Catterberg and
Moreno, 2006). With China’s rapid economic development and progress towards
becoming a postmodern society, the question of how the burgeoning popular political
activism at the grassroots level will be influenced by such macro socioeconomic
changes is a challenging one.
Given the autocratic nature of China’s communist regime, local participatory
reforms may also have little or nothing to do with democratisation.This is particularly
true of the transparency pathway adopted in Jiaozuo, which is characterised by a one-
way, top-down flow of information and the use of transparency as a passive check on
government expenditure.The representative model of Qingxian has, however, led to
a substantial change in the traditional Leninist power structure, as elected councillors
now possess the ultimate policy-making authority over fiscal matters. Even the
consultative pathway adopted by Wenling, although ad hoc and legally tenuous, has
brought about an inspiring transformation towards a more inclusive, pluralist and
open budgeting process. Despite their various strengths and levels of formalisation,
all three pathways demonstrate the willingness of the local Party-states to experiment

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with improved governance and popular approval techniques to curb China’s epidemic
corruption and commensurate social strife.
The future development of these participatory reforms is uncertain.Whether they
will ultimately be endorsed or rejected by the central leadership and whether they
will contribute to democratisation or illiberal adaptation remain open questions.They
do reinforce the idea, however, that even entrenched authoritarian regimes must
be more responsive to their citizens’ needs and adaptively reform their institutional
configurations to meet new political challenges.The direction that the PRC regime
chooses to take in expanding the boundaries of its leadership will shape its destiny,
and that decision deserves close attention from all those who share a common interest
in understanding twenty-first century political development.

Acknowledgement
Yan Xiaojun is grateful for the generous funding support provided by the Research
Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region under the Early Career
Scheme (Project # HKU790012H).
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Notes
1 According to Sintomer et al, up till 2010, there are estimated 795-1469 cases of
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participatory budgeting around the world, 511-920 in Latin America & Caribbean, 174-
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296 in Europe, 66-110 in Africa, 40-120 in Asia, 2-10 in North America, 2-10 in Oceania
and 0-3 in Arabic Africa (Sintomer et al., 2010:18-61).
2 A large number of studies have attempted to define participatory budgeting by focusing

on its processes and evolutions in various local settings, such as Baiocchi, 2005; Cabannes,
2004; Sintomer et al., 2008; Wampler, 2007.
3 ‘Riot erupts in Southwest China towns: reports’, Reuters, 12 August 2011, http://www.

reuters.com/article/2011/08/12/us-china-unrest-idUSTRE77B07S20110812
4 See Report at the 17th National Congress of Chinese Communist Party by Hu Jintao. 25

October, 2007. http://cpc.people.com.cn/GB/64093/67507/6429848.html

5 See The Organic Law of the Villagers Committee, and Article 2 of Zhongguo gongchandang

jiceng zuzhi gongzuo tiaoli [Regulations on the Work of the CCP’s Grassroots Organisations
in Rural Area].
6 ‘Tansuo you zhongguo tese de jiceng minzhu zhengzhi’ [To Explore the Grassroots

Democratic Politics with Chinese Characteristics], xuexi shibao [Study Times], 11 March
2002.
7 ‘Jiang Zemin zongshuji zai Jiangsu Shanghai Zhejiang sanshengshi nongcun kaocha shi

qiangdiao yanhai fada diqu yao shuaixian jiben shixian nongye xiandaihua’ [The General
Secretary Jiang Zemin emphasised the coastal developed area should first basically realise
agricultural modernisation in the inspection of the villages of Jiangsu,Shanghai and
Zhejiang], Renmin ribao (People’s Daily), 8 October 1998.
8 See The Second Deliberation Draft of Budget Law of the People’s Republic of China

(Amendment), www.npc.gov.cn/npc/xinwen/lfgz/flca/2012-07/06/content_1729110.
htm.
9 In terms of frequency of deliberative forums, Zeguo and Xinhe Townships hold two

forums preceding the LPC session, while Ruoheng Township holds three. The exact
timing of the forums varies, for example, they are usually held in January in Ruoheng,
but late February in Xinhe.

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 Yan Xiaojun and Xin Ge

10 See journal articles and news reports compiled in Chen, 2012; see also ‘Collection of
Meeting Minutes’ in Li, 2009.
11 See Note 8.

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