AcknowledgmentsList of Abbreviations 1. Introduction: Historical Reflections on Grassroots Political Reform in China Elizabeth J. Perry and Merle Goldman 2. Village Elections, Transparency, and Anticorruption: Henan and Guangdong Provinces Richard Levy 3. The Implementation of Village Elections and Tax-for-Fee Reform in Rural Northwest China John James Kennedy 4. Fiscal Crisis in China's Townships: Causes and Consequences Jean C. Oi and Zhao Shukai 5. Direct Township Elections Lianjiang Li 6.

The Struggle for Village Public Goods Provision: Informal Institutions of Accountability in Rural China Lily L. Tsai 7. Inadvertent Political Reform via Private Associations: Assessing Homeowners' Groups in New Neighborhoods Benjamin L. Read 8. Civil Resistance and Rule of Law in China: The Defense of Homeowners' Rights Yongshun Cai 9. "Hope for Protection and Hopeless Choices": Labor Legal Aid in the PRC Mary E. Gallagher 10. Is Labor a Political Force in China? Ching Kwan Lee 11.

Between Defiance and Obedience: Protest Opportunism in China Xi Chen 12. In Search of the Grassroots: Hydroelectric Politics in Northwest Yunnan Ralph Litzinger 13. Public Opinion Supervision: Possibilities and Limits of the Media in Constraining Local Officials Yuezhi Zhao and Sun Wusan NotesContributorsAcknowledgments.