We posit that autocrats introduce local elections when their bureaucratic capacity is low. Local elections exploit citizens’ informational advantage in keeping local officials accountable, but they also weaken vertical control. As bureaucratic capacity increases, the autocrat limits the role of elected bodies to regain vertical control. We argue that these insights can explain the introduction of village elections in rural China and the subsequent erosion of village autonomy years later. We construct a novel dataset to document political reforms, policy outcomes, and de facto power for almost four decades. We find that the introduction of elections improves popular policies and weakens unpopular ones. Increases in regional government resources lead to loss of village autonomy, but less so in remote villages. These patterns are consistent with an organizational view of local elections within autocracies. (JEL D72, D73, D83, O17, O18, P25, P26)

https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/pdf/doi/10.1257/aer.20181249

The Rise and Fall of Local Elections in China

Benefit or procedure? Determinants of perceived distributive fairness in rural China


 Numerous studies examine the micro-dynamics of subjective well-being (SWB) generally, or life satisfaction (LS) more specifically. Others also document the macro determinants of SWB and LS. We propose a model linking the two, in which an individual’s life satisfaction is contingent on (1) personal circumstances, (2) national factors such as democratic governance and the national wealth, and (3) the explicit interaction of these two levels of analysis. We test three sets of hypotheses that arise from this model with compiled data from six waves of the World Values Survey (WVS) data. The empirical evidence we present supports most of the hypotheses, including our novel proposition that both national wealth and democracy reduce the effect of individual personal income on LS.

The Political Economy of Life Satisfaction: Democracy, National Wealth, and Personal Income

This empirical study sought to understand the drivers behind civil protest participation in authoritarian contexts, explicitly focusing on Cuba. The data were sourced from 658 respondents via online surveys facilitated by CubaData, an independent social research agency specializing in Cuban studies, employing a secure panel system that guarantees the confidentiality and anonymity of participants. Our research primarily investigated the role of satisfaction with government policies in terms of the intention to participate in civil protests, introducing subjective well-being as a moderating variable. Utilizing the Process module of SMART-PLS 4 to emulate Process Model 58 for moderated mediation analysis, we accounted for measurement errors to ensure robust findings. Further controls were incorporated for age and political self-efficacy. The results revealed that subjective well-being significantly moderates the link between satisfaction with government policies and actual participation in civil protests. These findings suggest that the happiness level can change resistance dynamics within authoritarian settings. This research has implications for academic understandings of political behavior in autocratic regimes and practical applications in policy making and activism in Cuba.

The Role of Subjective Well-Being in Cuban Civil Protest against the Government: A Moderated Mediation Model

This study aims to investigate the impact of a transition from democracy to autocracy (an autocratization event) and from autocracy to democracy (a democratization event) on three indicators of subjective well-being: life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect. Data on episodes of regime transformation was taken from the Varieties of Democracy, while data on subjective well-being was extracted from the Gallup World Poll. The combined dataset comprised data on 166 countries from 2005 to 2021. Over this period, 22 autocratization events and 18 democratization events occurred. The study used a panel event study framework and controlled for GDP per capita. The results show no clear and consistent evidence of an impact of regime transformation in either direction (democratization or autocratization) on the three indicators of subjective well-being. The findings also indicate the absence of any causal effect between the episodes of regime change and subjective well-being.

Impact of episodes of regime transformation on subjective well-being: A panel event study

This study examines how an important reform of local governance—village democracy—in the world’s most populous areas has affected the happiness of residents in rural China. We find that introducing elections per se has no significant impact. In comparison, direct nomination of local leaders by villagers, which is a form of competitive election involving a high degree of public participation in political decision making, leads to higher levels of happiness. Further mechanism analyses show that direct nomination improves the local accountability of elected leaders by boosting the quality and effort of village heads and their governance performance by lowering the tax burden of villagers and vitalizing local public services. Our results highlight the importance of public participation in democracy and the underlying role of local accountability in affecting the subjective well-beings of citizens.

Public participation in democracy, local accountability and happiness: Evidence from rural China

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Public participation in democracy, local accountability and happiness: Evidence from rural China