Support for Economic and Political Change in the China Countryside An Empirical Study of Cadres and Villagers in Four Counties, 1990 and 1996

Samuel J. Eldersveld and Mingming Shen, the authors of this important 'two-wave' study, illuminate a unique and richly contoured view of Chinese attitudes about political and economic reform. They base their findings on the responses of a panel of over 800 mass respondents, approximately 1,300 interviews with villagers, and 250 interviews with cadres. The authors provide extensive analysis of their data and find that the level of popular support for reform and support for democratic values is surprisingly high. Of particular interest is the examination of support for political, specifically citizen, participation-contacting officials, attending party and village meetings, and voting for village committees. The authors find significant variance in mass and cadres beliefs, but Eldersveld and Shen's findings provide impressive new data for the study of economic and political development in China, and the possibility of democracy in the future.