Accountability without Democracy
Solidary Groups and Public Goods Provision in Rural China

How citizens get government officials to provide them with public services in rural China.

Lily L. Tsai (Author)

9780521871976, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 August 2007

368 pages, 53 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm, 0.52 kg

'Lily Tsai has written an elegant book to explain variations in the government provision of public goods in rural China through a model of informal accountability. … This inspiring piece of work will be required reading for students of Chinese politics and those interested in governance in developing polities.' The China Journal

Examines the fundamental issue of how citizens get government officials to provide them with the roads, schools, and other public services they need by studying communities in rural China. In authoritarian and transitional systems, formal institutions for holding government officials accountable are often weak. The state often lacks sufficient resources to monitor its officials closely, and citizens are limited in their power to elect officials they believe will perform well and to remove them when they do not. The answer, Lily L. Tsai found, lies in a community's social institutions. Even when formal democratic and bureaucratic institutions of accountability are weak, government officials can still be subject to informal rules and norms created by community solidary groups that have earned high moral standing in the community.

1. Governance and informal institutions of accountability
2. Decentralization and local governmental performance
3. Local governmental performance: assessing village public goods provision
4. Informal accountability and the structure of solidary groups
5. Temples and churches in rural China
6. Lineages and local governance
7. Accountability and village democratic reforms
8. The limitations of formal party and bureaucratic institutions
9. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP], Political structures: democracy [JPHV], Comparative politics [JPB], Rural communities [JFSF]