Rural Policy Implementation in Contemporary China
At the turn of the millennium, the disparities between rural and urban livelihoods; underdevelopment; and administrative shortcomings in the Chinese countryside, were increasingly seen as posing a manifest threat to social harmony and economic and political stability. At that time, the term three rural problems (sannong wenti) was coined, which defined the main issues of rural life that needed to be targeted by government action: agriculture (nongye), villages (nongcun) and farmers (nongmin). In turn, with the launch of the 11th Five-Year Plan in 2006, a pledge was made to shift the focus of developmental efforts to the long-neglected countryside, which is still home to half of the Chinese population.
This book presents an analysis of adaptive local policy implementation in China in the context of the building of a new socialist countryside (BNSC) policy framework. Based on intensive fieldwork in four counties in Fujian, Jiangxi, Shaanxi and Zhejiang Provinces between 2008 and 2011, it offers detailed analyses of the form and impact of county governments strategic agency at certain stages and within certain fields of the implementation process (for example, the design of local BNSC programs; the steering of project funding, implementation and evaluation; the establishment of model villages; and the management of public participation). Further, this study illustrates that BNSC is far more than the empty slogan described by many observers when it was launched in 2005/2006. Instead, it has already brought about considerable shifts in terms of the process and outcomes of rural policy implementation. Altogether, the results of this research challenge existing paradigms by showing how, against the background of contemporary approaches to rural development and recent reforms initiated by the central state, local bureaucracies strategic agency can actually push forward effective albeit not necessarily optimal policy implementation to some extent, which serves the interests of central authorities, local implementors and rural residents.
By tying into the larger debates on Chinas state capacity and authoritarian adaptability, this book enriches our understanding of the inner workings of the Chinese political system. As such, it will prove invaluable to students and scholars of Chinese politics, public policy, and development studies more generally.
Anna L. Ahlers is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Forum Internationale Wissenschaft, University of Bonn, Germany.
Routledge studies on China in transition
Series Editor:
David S. G. Goodman
1 The Democratisation of China
Baogang He
2 Beyond Beijing
Dali Yang
3 Chinas Enterprise Reform
Changing state/society relations after Mao
You Ji
4 Industrial Change in China
Economic restructuring and conflicting interests
Kate Hannan
5 The Entrepreneurial State in China
Real estate and commerce departments in reform era Tianjin
Jane Duckett
6 Tourism and Modernity in China
Tim Oakes
7 Cities in Post-Mao China
Recipes for economic development in the reform era
Jae Ho Chung
8 Chinas Spatial Economic
Development
Regional transformation in the Lower Yangzi Delta
Andrew M. Marton
9 Regional Development in China
States, globalization and inequality
Yehua Dennis Wei
10 Grassroots Charisma
Four local leaders in China
Stephan Feuchtwang and Wang Mingming
11 The Chinese Legal System
Globalization and local legal culture
Pitman B. Potter
12 Transforming Rural China
How local institutions shape property rights in China
Chi-Jou Jay Chen
13 Negotiating Ethnicity in China
Citizenship as a response to the state
Chih-yu Shih
14 Manager Empowerment in China
Political implications of rural industrialisation in the reform era
Ray Yep
15 Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary China
The search for national identity under reform
Yingjie Guo
16 Elite Dualism and Leadership Selection in China
Xiaowei Zang
17 Chinese Intellectuals Between State and Market
Edward Gu and Merle Goldman
18 China, Sex and Prostitution
Elaine Jeffreys
19 The Development of Chinas Stockmarket, 19842002
Equity politics and market institutions
Stephen Green
20 Chinas Rational Entrepreneurs
The development of the new private business sector
Barbara Krug
21 Chinas Scientific Elite
Cong Cao
22 Locating China
Jing Wang
23 State and Laid-Off Workers in Reform China
The silence and collective action of the retrenched
Yongshun Cai
24 Translocal China
Linkages, identities and the reimagining of space
Tim Oakes and Louisa Schein
25 International Aid and Chinas Environment
Taming the yellow dragon
Katherine Morton
26 Sex and Sexuality in China
Edited by Elaine Jeffreys
27 Chinas Reforms and International Political Economy
Edited by David Zweig and Chen Zhimin
28 Ethnicity and Urban Life in China
A comparative study of Hui Muslims and Han Chinese
Xiaowei Zang
29 Chinas Urban Space
Development under market socialism
T. G. McGee, George C. S. Lin, Mark Y. L. Wang, Andrew M. Marton and Jiaping Wu
30 Chinas Embedded Activism
Opportunities and constraints of a social movement
Edited by Richard Louis Edmonds and Peter Ho
31 Marketization and Democracy in China
Jianjun Zhang
32 The Chinese State in Transition
Processes and contests in local China
Edited by Linda Chelan Li
33 Chinas Governmentalities
Governing change, changing government
Edited by Elaine Jeffreys
34 Chinas Cotton Industry
Economic transformation and state capacity
Bjrn Alpermann
35 Serious Crime in China
Policing and politics
Susan Trevaskes
36 The Chinese States Retreat from Health
Policy and the politics of retrenchment
Jane Duckett
37 Chinas Changing Welfare Mix
Local perspectives
Edited by Beatriz Carrillo and Jane Duckett
38 Small Town China
Rural labour and social inclusion
Beatriz Carrillo
39 Tiger Girls
Women and enterprise in the Peoples Republic of China
Minglu Chen
40 Chinas Thought Management
Edited by Anne-Marie Brady
41 Rural Tax Reform in China
Policy processes and institutional change
Linda Chelan Li
42 Young Chinese in Urban China
Alex Cockain
43 Prostitution Scandals in China
Policing, media and society
Elaine Jeffreys
44 Unequal China
The political economy and cultural politics of inequality
Edited by Wanning Sun and Yingjie Guo
45 Elites and Governance in China
Edited by Xiaowei Zang and Chien-Wen Kou
46 Choosing Chinas Leaders
Edited by Chien-Wen Kou and Xiaowei Zang
47 Rural Policy Implementation in Contemporary China
New socialist countryside
Anna L. Ahlers
