Instrumental voting under authoritarianism: evidence from Chinese village elections

Abstract

Abstract Using data on 8,872 voters in 209 villages from Chinese Family Panel Studies, this paper uncovers compelling evidence of instrumental voting in the context of Chinese rural elections. First, voter turnouts are significantly higher in villages where rural committees control greater income opportunities and provide more public goods; second, voters’ economic reliance on these income opportunities and public goods is found to be positively correlated with their participation; third, the effects of economic reliance are more pronounced and precisely estimated in resource-affluent villages. One theoretical implication of our findings is that authoritarian elections can be instrumentally appealing enough to elicit mass interest while leaving intact the essence of an authoritarian regime’s rule.