Endogenous Social Network, Brokers and Public Service Provision in Rural China

• In Event: Social Welfare Provision in Non-democracies: Evidence from China

Abstract

The provision of public service is crucial for rural development and governance in developing countries. Although the Chinese Communist party-state has invested increasing resources towards this end, grassroots governments across China demonstrate vastly divergent capacity in delivering basic public services to rural citizens. Diverging from state-centric theories, this research proposes a network-based explanation for Chinese villages’ public service provision. Through in-depth field research in and comparative case studies on multiple villages in Southeast China, we find that, compared to the villages with state-dominated networks, those villages with endogenous social network and active brokers connecting villagers and external stakeholders tend to respond to villagers’ needs and provide public services more effectively. Such responsive brokerage also widens the deliberative basis for local governance, empowers citizens in collective actions and improves the transparency of decision making. Therefore, we argue that even in the Communist regime of China that seeks to eradicate an autonomous civil society, endogenous social network proves to be a critical component of rural governance that the party-state has to live with and rely on.


Key Words: endogenous social network; brokers; rural public service provision; transparency

Authors

• Zheren Song, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

• Jing Vivian Zhan, The Chinese University of Hong Kong