12
grassroots power structure, and thus interests distribution among the county, the township,
and the village. A well-established villagers’ committee tends to resist arbitrary fee levies
and hence affects resource extraction of the township. This constitutes a strong incentive
for the latter to bargain over how much to carry out the Law. On the other, its quality of
implementation is hard to be accurately evaluated under the cadre responsibility system, for
“employing a democratic work style and respecting villagers’ rights tend to be
nonquantifiable” (O’Brien and Li, 1999a:174). Besides, the center did not give first priority
to the Law as it does to family planning or social order control (O’Brien and Li, 1999a:169;
also see Edin, 2003). This enhances possibility to bargain.
Finally, tacit bargaining is popular because there are situations that actors’ real
intentions cannot be spoken out, for the intentions are illegal or get out of line. In the case
of village election reform, as Shi observed, bargaining and consensus building exist at each
step of the way to implementation (1999b:399). Since the Organic Law had been passed by
the National People’s Congress in 1987 and 1998, it is not advisable for the opponents to
argue openly against it. Besides, while the real reason for local cadres’ resistance toward
the Law is the fear that they might lose control over resources in their localities, it is also
not wise to speak out this fear frankly. Consequently, tacit bargaining has become a
prevalent strategy. Almost all scholars on village governance reported how local cadres
expressed their attitudes toward the Law. They apparently implement policies but slack,
procrastinate in doing the job; they may even covertly tamper the intent of policies and
feignedly enforce the Law by manipulating electoral process
8
(O’Brien, 1994; Oi, 1996;
8
There is also explicit bargaining. For instance, they claim excuses, e.g., special hardship in
their localities, and ask for special treatment or individual exemptions (O’Brien, 1994; Oi,
Convention