Tocqueville defines democracy as self-governance, and argues that a key foundation for a healthy democracy lies in the practices of local self-governance. In contemporary China, villages are governed by the "household responsibility system" and by village committees (self-governing civic organizations). By the end of 1990s, elections for village committees had spread to nearly all Chinese provinces.

A comparison of four villages in rural China offers an example of the relationship between the quality of services in each and the civic makeup of the village itself:

• Village A has weak family structures and the party secretary dominates village politics. As a result, there is little villager participation in the governance of the village. Its roads are not paved, its schools under-perform, its land management is not just, and its fiscal management is not transparent. The village is in debt.
• Village B also has weak family structures. Local governance is dominated by party cadres. Its roads are tar; its schools are poor, its land is not managed justly, and its fiscal management is as opaque as that of village A.
• Village C has very strong family structures and its local cadres are involved in village governance. There is some participation by senior villagers and families in village decision-making. The town has gravel roads, its schools are decent, its land management is fairer than that of the first two villages, and its finances are more transparent.
• Village D does not have well-organized family structures. Nevertheless, its villagers are active in village governance, as are the local cadres. It has a cement road, its schools are of better quality, its land is managed fairly and its finances are transparent and in good order.

These examples suggest that when villagers are permitted to participate in local government, the quality of services generally improves.

But as the sample villages above also show, not all villages in China have the same degree of villager participation or absence of party control. Generally, the degree of villager participation is related to three factors: geographical conditions (peripheral vs. central regions); property rights arrangements (collective property vs. private property); and associational life (religious, family/clan structures, and commercial associations). Regions that protect private property, allow diverse groups to participate in government, and have less party control are typically better governed than those that do not. Villages that have a history of local autonomy and strong family relationships within the village itself are even better equipped for self-rule, as has been demonstrated since the passage of the 1998 Organic Law on Village Committees.

The study’s findings raise a number of questions: How strong should the central government be to maintain itself as a state, while allowing for local autonomy and good governance? Will the laws and policies adopted by Beijing be predictable enough to allow local governance? Can China establish a "polycentric order" in the face of the Communist Party’s desire to remain in control of the political order? In such a large and diverse country, in which the quality of life varies so drastically from one province to the other, civic development is a daunting task. Yet the Chinese are not "naturally" passive. What China’s citizens have lacked is the public space in which to assert themselves.

The above study of village governance of course is based on a small sample and did not focus on the quality of the electoral process in the villages. Instead, the focus was on who was making the decisions in the villages. Other studies of village committees and village elections seem to indicate that wider participation in the election process does not necessarily lead to better governance, unless officials are removable from office, because local party leaders still dominate the nomination and selection process for village committee elections. Are the means by which modern governments, like China, can control their populace and destroy independent sources of authority--and hence the initial steps toward self-rule--something that Tocqueville could not have anticipated?

I. What can we learn from Tocqueville about how to study a society?  

III. Windows into China's Civic Culture 

IV. Tocqueville's Ancien Regime: A Revolution Gone Bad 

V. What's Next