Institutional fit of development zone-led peri-urbanization in China

Abstract

China has been undergoing rapid peri-urbanization in recent decades. The changes in land use, demography, and economy are easy to perceive, and have been intensively examined, yet little is known about how local actors react to peri-urban dynamics. Adopting an institutional approach, this study extends the model of institutional fit and applies it to examine the development zone-led peri-urbanization taking place around Chinese small cities, focusing on how peri-urban households adjust their livelihood strategies to cope with the changing socio-economic environment, and how local governments adapt the rules of grassroots governance for various peri-urban settlements. Jiangyan, a small city located in central Jiangsu province, was selected for detailed case study. The investigation on the institutional fit of household livelihood strategy shows that the adjustments made by peri-urban households in their income-earning activities, the shift from the agricultural sector to the non-agricultural sector, and the straddling of both sectors, are more to fit the grand circumstance of nationwide economic development than DZ-led peri-urbanization. The efforts by land loss households to retain farming activities, however, is identified as a “real” fit of income-earning activities to the land expropriation caused by DZ-led peri-urbanization. On the other hand, peri-urban households cannot secure all members’ access to social security. They strategically declined to enroll members in pension schemes and medical insurance programs for which they are eligible, which are compromises to the restraints on the available social security programs and the economic conditions of peri-urban households. The examination of grassroots governance focuses on changes in the mechanisms of grassroots governance generated by the establishment of JEDZ, the making of rural shequ, and the establishment of Sanshui sub-district. The findings show that local actors cannot make radical changes to the rural-urban dichotomy that constrains the governance of peri-urban settlements. The measures they adopted were either to provide provisional solutions, or to patch the surface of insufficient institutions. Local actors are powerless in implementing institutional innovation. The study contributes to the theory of institutionalism by reconceptualizing the concept of institutional fit in studies of peri-urbanization, and extending the model of institutional fit to illustrate how local actors work successively on adapting institutions to local context. The extended model of institutional fit provides a framework for analyzing the complicated processes of making and adjusting institutions. Moreover, this study draws from the findings of several policy implications on land expropriation, social security systems, and grassroots governance for Chinese small cities that are undergoing DZ-led peri-urbanization.