Objective
China's direct local elections have received a great deal of international attention, and have been a particular concern of the European Union. But there has been much more focus on understanding village elections than elections at the township level of government. Direct township elections are significant, however, because – unlike village elections – they involve the lowest tier of the Chinese governmental system. And they were suspended in 2006 after only eight years of experimentation. In this project we aim to understand first why township elections were permitted and then suspended, and second, their governance outcomes. The project will contribute to understanding the obstacles to bottom-up democratization in China, as well as the impacts of elections on local governance.
We will conduct intensive interviews with 30 officials in central party-state institutions as well as Chinese and foreign officials responsible for establishing and implementing cooperative programmes or projects on direct local elections. We will also adopt an empirical case study approach to understanding the governance effects of direct elections, comparing five townships that have introduced elections with five townships that have not. This method will deliver new cross sectional data for analysis.
The researcher, Professor Dong Lisheng (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), has been closely involved in monitoring local elections in China and has unparalleled access to decision makers and local governments there. Together with a team of political scientists at the University of Glasgow with expertise in Chinese politics and in elections and electoral politics, he will be able to produce the definitive analysis of China's township level reform experience, assess the way forward for Chinese local elections and advise European policy makers and researchers on ways of fostering good governance and democratization in China.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- social sciences sociology governance
- social sciences political sciences political transitions elections
You need to log in or register to use this function
We are sorry... an unexpected error occurred during execution.
You need to be authenticated. Your session might have expired.
Thank you for your feedback. You will soon receive an email to confirm the submission. If you have selected to be notified about the reporting status, you will also be contacted when the reporting status will change.
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IIF
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Coordinator
100102 BEIJING
China
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.