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We posit that autocrats introduce local elections when their bureaucratic capacity is low. Local elections exploit citizens' informational advantage in keeping local officials accountable, but they also weaken vertical control. As bureaucratic capacity increases, the autocrat limits the role of elected bodies to regain vertical control. We argue that these insights can explain the introduction of village elections in rural China and the subsequent erosion of village autonomy years later. We construct a novel dataset to document political reforms, policy outcomes, and de facto power for almost four decades. We find that the introduction of elections improves popular policies and weakens unpopular ones. Increases in regional government resources lead to loss of village autonomy, but less so in remote villages. These patterns are consistent with an organizational view of local elections within autocracies. (JEL D72, D73, D83, O17, O18, P25, P26)

1. Introduction / Yang Yao & Linda Yueh -- pt. I. Growth and internal reforms. 2. Is China's growth real and sustainable? / Justin Yifu Lin. 3. Market instability and economic complexity: theoretical lessons from transition experiments / Ping Chen. 4. The impact of privatisation on firm performance in China / Ligang Song & Yang Yao -- pt. II. External reforms and impact. 5. Putting the cart before the horse? Capital account liberalisation and exchange rate flexibility in China / Eswar Prasad, Thomas Rumbaugh & Qing Wang. 6. China's competitiveness, intra-industry and intra-regional trade in Asia / Linda Yueh. 7. The economic impact of globalisation in Asia-Pacific: the case of the flying geese model / Christer Ljungwall & Örjan Sjöberg. 8. China's trade policies in wider Asian perspective / Razeen Sally. 9. After the CMI: the future of Asian monetary cooperation and China's role / He Fan, Zhang Bin & Zhang Ming -- pt. III. Conclusions and implications. 10. China's economic reforms in the globalisation era / Justin Yifu Lin, Yang Yao & Linda Yueh.