ABSTRACT
Participatory governance in local China allows select members of the public to come and ask questions, voice their opinions, and more generally, advocate for their rights and interests in policy- and law-making processes. Therefore, the public deliberative and consultative processes that do take place provide an opportunity for different segments of the society to engage in a form of political representation. In some cases, this provides the public with a political voice. In others, however, the participatory mechanisms rather turn into orchestrated performances of political consultation and participation overseen by leaders. This chapter analyses the production and contestation of the legitimising discourses of these participatory mechanisms by both state and societal actors. The case study presented in this chapter analyses deliberative and consultative mechanisms, including public hearings, town hall meetings, and expert meetings at the city level. The findings in this chapter draw from interviews with the organisers and participants of participatory events in Hangzhou and Wuhan in 2014 and Suzhou and Changsha in 2019. The analysis demonstrates the differences between the framing of the participatory experience by the central and local state, on the one hand, and the participants and the local and national media on the other hand.
