Rethinking Women's Substantive Representation: The Challenge of the All-China Women's Federation

Dominant perspectives on gender and politics commonly view the Chinese party-state as an abstract, immutably patriarchal and non-democratic body which devalue the agency and interests of women. However, the role of the state has still been quite controversial regarding the development of the female half of the Chinese population. The aim of this study is (1) to explore whether the All-China Women’s Federation(ACWF), an institutionalized organization led by the Chinese Communist Party, substantively represent women’s interests; (2) to discuss the criteria of evaluating the representativeness of a public organization which is not elected by the people as well as not entirely autonomous, such as the ACWF; and (3) to offer a new perspective on gender and politics which has either overlooked or misinterpreted women’s representation articulated and conducted by the Chinese party-state. This study adopts a case-based qualitative approach to reveal how the substantive representation of women is conducted by the ACWF. Following the debate of responsiveness, we introduce a concept of serving, which consist of the ACWF’s actions of observing, responding, and mobilizing the interests and needs of the Chinese women during the policy process.