Abstract:

The discussion of village cadres’ roles and their behavioral strategies has always been a very important issue in sociology， especially since democracy got practiced in rural China. Has there been any change in the village cadres’ roles since? In their daily governance， how are their roles determined and their behavioral strategies practiced? To answer these questions， not only is indepth field work needed but also serious empirical analysis. Using the data from a sixprovince survey， this paper quantitatively analyzed the effect of village democracy on the village cadres’ roles and behavioral strategies. The empirical results showed that the practice of village democracy significantly reduced village cadres’ concern for state tasks but increased their concern for community tasks. This means that village cadres’ role leans toward that of a spokesman on behalf of community interests.

Key words: dual roles of village cadres, village democracy, village governance