Presentation Title
Vote of No Confidence: Elections and Democracy in College Student Organizations in China
Location
Hanover Duxbury Room
Start Date
11-10-2013 3:45 PM
End Date
11-10-2013 5:15 PM
Abstract
Does the experience of voting necessarily promote demands for liberal democracy? This paper will unpack this often assumed relationship by examining electoral experiments voluntarily launched by Chinese college students. Drawing data from sixteen months of ethnographic fieldwork among extra-curricular organizations in an elite university in China, this paper discusses how college students think about western-inspired ideals and practices of liberal democracy before and after the experience of direct ballot voting. I argue that unsupervised organization and civic implementation of direct ballot elections can poison participants' idealism and enthusiasm in promoting democratic reforms in China. Instead of feeling empowered by their involvement in the leadership selection process, many students became convinced that voting was inherently unfair, unreliable, wasteful, and disruptive, and a bad instrument to be introduced to China's wider socio-political landscape. Analyzing narratives about student leader elections in on-campus interest groups, this paper examines how and why the opportunity to design and implement democratic elections ended up promoting distrust and disillusionment in voting.
This paper will contribute new material to the study of democratic changes in China, a topic that has received much scholarly attention especially after the Communist Party has granted rural inhabitants the rights to elect village heads since 1988. Since then many scholars have stayed cautiously optimistic about the democratizing potential of grassroots electoral experiments. This paper, on the other hand, suggests the possibility that imperfect experience of voting could shatter democratic ideals and promote skepticism in the applicability of democratic reforms in China. It raises questions about the preconditions and contexts of properly functioning democratic systems, and calls for more critical examination of the assumptions behind the experience of and demands for liberal democracy.
Vote of No Confidence: Elections and Democracy in College Student Organizations in China
Hanover Duxbury Room
Does the experience of voting necessarily promote demands for liberal democracy? This paper will unpack this often assumed relationship by examining electoral experiments voluntarily launched by Chinese college students. Drawing data from sixteen months of ethnographic fieldwork among extra-curricular organizations in an elite university in China, this paper discusses how college students think about western-inspired ideals and practices of liberal democracy before and after the experience of direct ballot voting. I argue that unsupervised organization and civic implementation of direct ballot elections can poison participants' idealism and enthusiasm in promoting democratic reforms in China. Instead of feeling empowered by their involvement in the leadership selection process, many students became convinced that voting was inherently unfair, unreliable, wasteful, and disruptive, and a bad instrument to be introduced to China's wider socio-political landscape. Analyzing narratives about student leader elections in on-campus interest groups, this paper examines how and why the opportunity to design and implement democratic elections ended up promoting distrust and disillusionment in voting.
This paper will contribute new material to the study of democratic changes in China, a topic that has received much scholarly attention especially after the Communist Party has granted rural inhabitants the rights to elect village heads since 1988. Since then many scholars have stayed cautiously optimistic about the democratizing potential of grassroots electoral experiments. This paper, on the other hand, suggests the possibility that imperfect experience of voting could shatter democratic ideals and promote skepticism in the applicability of democratic reforms in China. It raises questions about the preconditions and contexts of properly functioning democratic systems, and calls for more critical examination of the assumptions behind the experience of and demands for liberal democracy.
Comments
Presentation is included in Panel 10: Student Engagement and Global-Local Dynamics in Education