Workplace-Based Connection: Interest Articulation of Deputies in China’s Municipal People’s Congresses

Existing studies have demonstrated that China’s people’s congresses are co-optative and constituency-based representative institutions where regime outsiders’ interests and regional interests are articulated. Drawing on data of the municipal people’s congresses in Shenzhen and Kunming, this article shows that the congresses are also “workplace-based” representative institutions, that is, institutions through which deputies express the interests of their work organizations. Different from the conventional view that deputies’ workplaces make them less active in performing in the congresses, this article first shows that a “workplace-based connection” exists in people’s congresses and thus deputies are driven by incentives from their workplaces to articulate the latter’s interests. Furthermore, municipal deputies whose work organizations depend more on municipal units (i.e., municipal party-state organs) or have less influence on municipal policy making usually put forward more proposals about workplace-based interests. These findings indicate that people’s congresses can be channels utilized by both state and nonstate sectors to articulate organizational interests.