Constructing Consent: How Grassroots Governments Reshape the State–Peasant Relationship in the Xi Era

Abstract

After the rural tax and fee reform in China in the 2000s, the increased administrative nature of rural governance weakened state–peasant connections, rendering local cadres’ traditional societal-oriented consent strategies ineffective. To gain peasants’ consent to state policies and reconnect with them, grassroots officials adopted a more complex, covert and naturalized strategy for constructing consent, integrating it into peasants’ daily lives. This study uses the “rural construction” initiative in Chuxi county, China, as a case study to explore the construction of consent. The findings indicate that constructing peasant consent is a process of continuous interaction between the individual actor and social structures. In the regularization phase, grassroots officials use institutional practices to facilitate consent, including winning the hearts and minds of villagers, solving “thought” problems, shaping behavioural norms and cultivating lower-level agents. In the mobilization phase, when consent is needed, grassroots officials flexibly adapt the pre-established institutional elements to elicit specific consent. They do this by fostering an atmosphere of consent, employing divide-and-rule tactics, and contextualizing rules. The study concludes that the party-state is building a broader form of peasant consent in the Xi era, which extends beyond consent to policies.

摘要

21世纪初农村税费改革后,日益加重的乡村治理“行政化”不仅削弱了国家与农民间关系联结,也使基层官员原本社会化的同意生产策略变得失效。为了争取农民对国家政策同意、重新连接农民,基层官员采取一套更加复杂、隐蔽和自然的“建构同意”策略,融入到农民日常生活之中。本研究以中国楚西县乡村建设行动为案例探索同意的建构。研究结果表明, 建构同意是一个行动者和社会结构持续互动的过程。在常规阶段, 基层官员采取制度实践促成同意, 包括俘获人心、解决思想问题、形塑行为规范和培养农民代理人。在同意议题来临的动员阶段, 基层官员则灵活调整已经建立的制度元素来生产特定的同意。他们通过营造同意氛围、分而治之以及情境化规则的方式实现这一点。研究得出结论, 在习时代, 国家正努力构建一种更大的农民同意, 这种同意超越了对政策的认同。