8
also Lampton, 1987:40). So if the Organic Law is not well implemented by local
authorities, it is because enforcing the Law is not given top priority by the higher levels and
may be conflicting with other assignments.
The policy content approach leads us away from the rigid dichotomy of state and
society and offers a profound understanding of the actors and processes within the state
regarding policy implementation in rural China. However, while this approach is
productive in explaining the variations in the enforcement of different types of policy, it
does not work so well in explaining the variations in the enforcement of the same policy
across the country. If the Organic Law is not clearly specified, or its practice cannot be well
assessed by higher level, or it is not the top priority of the center, then it should be equally
ignored or resisted by local officials everywhere. Why do the responses of local cadres
toward the Organic Law, as many observers have already noticed, vary significantly from
region to region and from time to time (e.g., O’Brien, 1994; Kelliher, 1997; Shi, 1999b)?
2. Bargaining Treadmill in Village Elections
As we have discussed, neither the economic approach nor its policy content
alternative is adequate to provide exhaustive explanation for what happened in village
governance. We would like to provide a third approach in which to deal with behavior of
the township government in promoting village elections. While it is county Bureau of Civil
Affairs (BCA) who superintends the practice of village self-rule, township government is
Convention