The Rise and Fall of Local Elections in China

We posit that autocrats introduce local elections when their bureaucratic capacity is low. Local exploit citizens’ informational advantage in keeping officials accountable, but they also weaken vertical control. As increases, the autocrat limits role of elected bodies to regain argue these insights can explain introduction village rural China and subsequent erosion autonomy years later. construct a novel dataset document political reforms, policy outcomes, de facto power for almost four decades. find improves popular policies weakens unpopular ones. Increases regional government resources lead loss autonomy, less so remote villages. These patterns are consistent with an organizational view within autocracies. (JEL D72, D73, D83, O17, O18, P25, P26)