Tax Reform in Rural China
Revenue, Resistance, and Authoritarian Rule

This book answers the important question - how does China maintain authoritarian rule while it is committed to market-oriented economic reforms?

Hiroki Takeuchi (Author)

9781107056848, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 11 August 2014

253 pages, 12 b/w illus. 10 tables
23.5 x 15.6 x 1.9 cm, 0.49 kg

'Although there have been positive changes in some aspects of peasant life, there are continued challenges as Hiroki Takeuchi's excellent book explains. … Takeuchi uses the general theoretical literature on the political economy of taxation to illustrate the difficulties and the eventual failures of most tax reforms in rural China.' Chow Bing Ngeow, Journal of Chinese Political Science

How does China maintain authoritarian rule while it is committed to market-oriented economic reforms? This book analyzes this puzzle by offering a systematic analysis of the central-local governmental relationship in rural China, focusing on rural taxation and political participation. Drawing on in-depth interviews with Chinese local officials and villagers, and combining them with game-theoretic analyses, it argues that the central government uses local governments as a target of blame for the problems that the central government has actually created. The most recent rural tax reforms, which began in 2000, were a conscious trade-off between fiscal crises and rural instability. For the central government, local fiscal crises and the lack of public goods in agricultural areas were less serious concerns than the heavy financial burdens imposed on farmers and the rural unrest that the predatory extractive behavior of local governments had generated in the 1990s, which threatened both economic reforms and authoritarian rule.

Introduction
1. The theory of revenue and resistance under authoritarian rule in rural China
Part I. Historical and Analytical Contexts: 2. Revenue and resistance in rural China in history
3. Revenue and resistance under authoritarian rule in post-Mao rural China, 1980–2005
4. Survival strategies of local governments: from predatory taxation to land trade
Part II. Analytic Narratives: 5. Exit strategies of villagers: migration and taxation in rural China
Appendix 5A: formal description and solution to the game of migration and taxation
6. Voice strategies of villagers: petitions and taxation in rural China
Appendix 6A: formal description and solution to the game of migration, participation, and taxation
7. Village elections and authoritarian rule in rural China
Appendix 7A: formal description and solution to the village election game
Conclusion
Appendix of empirical sources and methods: Appendix A: list of informants
Appendix B: interview questions
Appendix C: sources of the cases on village elections.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP], Political control & freedoms [JPV], Regional government [JPR], Political structure & processes [JPH], Political ideologies [JPF], Political science & theory [JPA]