State rescaling and policy experimentation in understanding China's rural land reform : a case study of Wujin

Abstract

Rural land reform in China has taken place in response to market forces. The research for the present thesis explored experiments initiated by the central government in 2015 involving the designation of 33 county-level jurisdictions as pilots. The aim of this study was to examine the evolution of land reform in China through the interactions among multi-layered governments. Drawing on literature about state rescaling and policy experimentation, this thesis developed an integrated framework for analysing China’s rural land reform in an ever-changing political-economic environment from a relational perspective. It investigated shifts in regulatory power across diverse scales and the progressive use of policy experimentation by the central government to effect socio-economic reform, which has become integral to state rescaling. The qualitative analysis consisted of two complementary parts. First, at the national level, this thesis analysed the interactions between the central and local governments with respect to land politics. Historical trends in the evolution of land institutions and vertical power shifts across scales indicate that rural land reform in China has been a hybrid and entangled process driven by contested interests and moulded by continual (re)negotiation involving multiple layers of government. Second, at the local level, a case study was conducted in Wujin, a county-level jurisdiction that was among the 33 rural land experimentation sites in China’s latest round of reform. This coastal district has actively converted rural land for urban construction in the post-reform era, and land-use challenges have arisen as a result. This thesis thus details the reconfiguration of state regulatory power and rolling policymaking in the course of rural land reform. Greater autonomy has been granted to the experimentation sites by the central and provincial governments to facilitate the reform process. As a county-level jurisdiction in which the core administrative authority has been assumed by the municipal government, Wujin has turned to subordinate townships and rural collectives as allies. In return, land-management authority has devolved below the district level as well as on land interests. Furthermore, Wujin has responded selectively to the central government’s policy intentions and navigated the reforms to balance the vested interests of the diversed stakeholders. Rural land reform in China, has been confined primarily to the (re)configuration of state power and scalar relations. Moreover, policy experimentation has been increasingly deployed as a reform mechanism by the central government and thus has contributed to the state’s reshuffling of and advances in land institutions. Contemporary rural land reform is also path-dependent on inherited land institutions and local governance structures. This thesis contributed to the differentiation of the roles of local authorities at the county level and below as well as of quasi-governmental village committees in rural land reform. Further, it emphasized the potential of emerging policy experimentation to alter the inter-scalar relations that contribute to the effectiveness of land reform. Lastly, reference to the Sunan model highlighted the importance of specific local political-economic contexts and governance structures in relation to land policy innovations.