Street-Level Birth Control and Mutual Noncompliance

Abstract

Contradictions between central policy goals and local interests can be resolved through cadres’ mediation at the village level. Village leaders act as mediators between central policy directives and rural residents. This compromise is attributable to the level of autonomy that village cadres enjoy, which affords them some discretion in the implementation of policies and regulations. The theory of the street-level bureaucrat explains how local cadres, at both the village and town levels, from the 1980s to the early 2000s, were able to use underreporting of out-of-plan births to mediate the conflicts between central policy goals and local interests. Underreporting goes beyond selective policy implementation and is a result of mutual noncompliance between villagers and cadres. One of the long-term implications of current changes in demographics is that as more rural residents permanently migrate to urban areas, the village community structure that allowed cadres to mediate between central policy and local interests may be disappearing.