The researcher interviewed 39 deputies who are incumbent officials, educators and farmers. These deputies provided a detailed explanation of how they play their roles in representing the interests of the state towards the community, and what difficulties and achievements they had in this role. As introduced in Section 4.9.3 in Chapter Four, the researcher used Nvivo to quantify the data in the individual interviews by the same classification of achievements and challenges in the focus groups. The references of each participant were imported into Nvivo. The frequencies of reference point determine the deputies’ priority concerns in development issues
6.4.1 A general introduction to the four functions in individual interviews
In Table 22, there are 132 points of achievements that the deputies have in representing the interests of the state, 38 points more than the challenges they face, which are 94 points. The
fourth function “developing political representation” was the most talked about in the
interviews. In general, the achievements the deputies have are greater and more diverse than their challenges in representing the interests of the state. In the first three functions, which are
“promoting the strategy of the Party”, “enforcing laws and policies of the state” and “implementing livelihood projects, there are more points of achievements which are 19, 37 and 20, than the challenges which are 11, 11 and 8 respectively. However, only in the fourth
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function as “developing political representation”, are there more points for the challenges
they face than the achievements they have.
Table 22: Representing the interests of the state: Points of achievements and challenges
Functions Achievements (points) Challenges (points) A minus C (points)
Function 1: Promoting the strategy of the Party 19 11 8
Function 2: Enforcing laws and policies of the state 37 11 26
Function 3: Implementing livelihood projects 20 8 12
Function 4: Developing political representation 56 64 -12
Total 132 94 38
6.4.2 Analysis of the individual interviews
The achievements that the researcher discusses in Figure 4 include implementation of the
Party’s principles and policies in the first function, implementation of national policies in the
second function, preferential policies for farmers in the third function and two items, assured voting rights and oversight role, in the fourth function.
In Figure 4, for the achievements of representing the interests of the state towards the
community, we can see there are 18 points for the achievement of “implementation of Party’s line, principles and policies” in the first function. This reflects that as one of the local
governmental authorities in China, the LCPC has a core role as agent of the Party. It is a stipulated collective action for the deputies to be agents of the state. There are 27 points for
the achievement of “implementation of the national policies” in the second function. Many
national policies involve development projects in the rural areas. Therefore, when the deputies talk about this achievement, it has included those projects which are in the third function such as preferential policies for farmers, MSS and a new rural cooperative medical care system.
There are seven points for the achievement of preferential policies for farmers (PPFs). PPFs are most talked about because they concern the sustainable livelihood projects of the constituents such as the development of cultural tourism and the planting of orchards. There
are 25 points for the achievements of “assured voting rights” and 23 points for “oversight role”
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representing the interests of the state, there are four most prominent achievements:
implementation of the Party’s line, principle and policies, implementation of national policies, assured voting rights and oversight role.
Figure 4: Representing the interests of the state: Points of achievements (Individual interviews, n=39)
In Figure 5, the challenges that the deputies face and discussed with the researcher are social stability in the challenges for the first function, education in the second function, livelihood projects in the third function, and oversight role and conflicts of interests in the fourth function. In Figure 5, for the challenges in representing the interests of the state towards the community, we can see “social stability” has five points and it is the item talked about most by the deputies in the challenges of the first function.
The deputies believe that social instability in the rural areas is the result of the corruption of officials and the conflicts of interests between the state and the community due to large-scale economic development projects. These projects result in many social issues such as unemployment and landless farmers. Education is the second biggest challenge, which was mentioned nine times in the second function. The challenge in education that the deputies face includes two parts: the first is the low level of education of the LCPC deputies which
“make their ability to participate in state affairs being compromised” (Deputy 6) because education “plays a major role in the execution of their responsibilities” (Deputy 30). For the third function, livelihood projects are the greatest challenges because the supervision over
4 23 0 4 25 1 1 7 2 3 1 3 2 2 5 27 3 1 0 18 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Popularizing the laws Overight role Development of human rights Enhancing political power at grassroots level Assured voting rights Improvement of education standard Construction of infrastructure Preferential policies for farmers Renovation of unsafe housing New rural cooperative medical care system Old age pension Minimum subsistence security system Implementation of livelihood projects Promotion of the industrial development nationwide Maintaining and supporting the state education policy Implementation of national policies Family planning policy National unity Promoting the development of China's western regions Implementation of the Party's line, principles and policies
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livelihood projects is difficult. Therefore, the LCPC and the deputies need to consider how to supervise the livelihood projects.
Figure 5:Representing the interests of the state: Points of challenges (Individual interviews, n=39)
The leadership of the permanent committee of LCPC should consider what the essential areas for oversight are in any particular year. For example, it could be
the people’s livelihood (Deputy 6).
“Conflicts of interests” and “oversight role” have 19 and 11 points respectively in the
challenges of the fourth function61. The deputies view conflict of interests as a potential threat against social stability in the rural areas.
During certain periods in the development of the state, the interests of the minority will invariably be violated. When that happens, conflicts come into being and will become more intense. All I can do is try to minimise the impact of the loss of voice of the minority as much as possible. At present what the state needs to consider the most is compensation for loss of land and employment (Deputy 6).
61 When the deputies talked about conflicts of interests, they generally deny their existence. However, the researcher finds that the conflicts of interests exist when the deputies talked about land appropriation and landless farmers due to the implementation of development projects. So the researcher considers that the conflicts of interests between the state and the community are potential ones in accordance with the talk of the interviewees. And thus this item is still categorised into the challenges.
2 19 9 5 6 2 11 5 5 0 0 1 1 2 4 0 9 2 5 2 2 2 0 5 10 15 20
Soliciting public opinions Conflicts of interests Conflicts of disputes Lack of understanding of policies by the villagers Insufficient understanding of representation Low political awareness of the local people Oversight role Improvement of quality and ability of deputies Backward ideas Natural resources Project profitability Technical resources Lack of expertise and funding Funding Livelihood projects Rural uran income inequality Education Family planning policy Social stability Corruption Charisma Spiritual work
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Although the deputies believe that they have made achievements in their oversight role, they still view it as the biggest challenge when they oversee the government work, especially
when it relates to people’s livelihood projects.
All projects related to the people’s livelihood must be given complete oversight, for instance, the period when a project begins and when it finishes. How are the funds used? The whole process should be fully supervised without leaving out
anything. And the deputies themselves don’t have sufficient strength to oversee
livelihood projects. So the people are not satisfied with the government work in this area (Deputy 6).
6.4.3 The deputies’ views of the Ethnic Regional Autonomous System (ERAS) in representing the interests of the state
In the individual interviews, many deputies talked about their views on the Ethnic Regional Autonomous system (ERAS). Their views reflect their role as agent of the state. They think that they are awarded many preferential policies to the local people in the ERAS.
Under the current ERAS, as I mentioned previously we are awarded many preferential policies, such as family planning and development projects. The county has a special poverty-relief bureau that has awarded many projects, such as fruit tree planting and micro-loans for small and micro enterprises. The preliminary financial support has helped the Miao people to prosper. We are currently applying for some other projects as well. The Party’s ethnic policy is good. We have benefitted from many supporting policies (Deputy 4).
Under the ERAS, the county has got some preferential policies, such as being awarded marks for the college entrance examination. With the development of the local socio-economic situation, I believe that the Miao ethnic group I belong to will get even more benefits from the state policies (27).
I think there is something special about it. For example, we have preferential policies regarding things such as loans, bonus scores in entrance examinations for university and other various poverty-relief programmes (Deputy 20).
In addition, the ERAS promotes the political rights of the Miao people as well as the development of their culture and education.
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This system promotes the political rights of the Miao people. The Miao people can live a better life by making full use of it. As TPC chairman, I need to promote the government work while playing my role as a deputy under the ERAS (Deputy 8).
We get better attention in the fields of culture and the development of education under the ERAS (Deputy 21).
The comments of the deputies about the ERAS demonstrate that the ERAS as a governance system is favourable to the interests of the local people because it bring about a lot of preferential policies. Therefore, the deputies promote it on behalf of the state.
6.5 The roles that the deputies play in a structure of polycentric governance in cultural