Official statistics and independent survey data show that in the last decade China has witnessed a remarkable change in its enforcement of environmental pollution violations, moving toward more formalistic and coercive law enforcement with more enforcement cases as well as higher fines. The data also show that there is considerable regional variation with coastal areas having more and higher punishments than those inland. This article explores these findings, seeking to understand the explanation and meaning of these temporal and regional variation patterns. The study shows how enforcement varies when there is a convergence of governmental, social, and economic institutional forces. The article argues that the basis for such convergence has been fragile, as national pressures have lacked consistency and local community and government support evaporates when dominant sources of income are at stake.

/pdf/fragile-convergence-understanding-variation-in-the-4n2c3u0clx.pdf

Fragile Convergence: Understanding Variation in the Enforcement of China's Industrial Pollution Law

. . . a country possessing very considerable advantages in machinery and skill, and which may therefore be enabled to manufacture commodities with much less labour than her neighbours, may in return for such commodities import a por tion of the corn required for its consumption, even if its land were more fertile and corn could be grown with less labour than in the country from which it was imported. —D. Ricardo, On the Principle of Political Economy and Taxation, ed. by R. M. Hartwell (Harmondsworth, 1971), p. 154.

Are Coal and Colonies Really Crucial? Kenneth Pomeranz and the Great Divergence

This paper analyses how rural property rights reforms have reshaped grassroots governance in the rapid urbanisation process in China. The management and distribution of the villages’ collective property has become a flashpoint for local conflict when collective farmland is taken for urban uses. Changping, a rural district located on the northern periphery of Beijing, pioneered a property rights reform to convert villages’ collective assets into a new form of shareholding co-operative. Along with the election of a new board of directors that is now in charge of collective property, the reforms are redefining the jurisdiction of the party, the village government and the shareholding co-operative organisation, thus reconfiguring the political and economic power structure at the village level.

Property Rights Reforms and Changing Grassroots Governance in China’s Urban—Rural Peripheries: The Case of Changping District in Beijing:

China's urbanization has created a large number of urban villages which, although they have been transferred to urban administration, have maintained their collective economies. Using a comparative perspective, this article investigates how villagers, the village collectives and the urban administration organize community governance in three urban villages on the fringes of the cities of Guangzhou, Wuhan and Shenyang. The findings suggest that successful village collective shareholding companies play a leading role in community governance by providing villagers with economic and social welfare, subsidizing community administration services, and mobilizing residents. The comparative analysis also shows that village shareholding companies employ different mechanisms based on the varied histories of their village collective economies, the ability of the village collectives to mobilize resources, and the degree to which the village collectives are engaged in the grassroots administrative structure. The article argues that the “not rural but not urban” governance mode of the urban villages illustrates China's fragmented urbanization planning. At the same time, it illuminates the dynamics of state–society relations during China's urbanization and how landless villagers and village collectives respond to urban transformation by adopting different strategies to preserve their individual and collective interests.

"Not Rural but Not Urban": Community Governance in China's Urban Villages

The demise of collective units that attach citizens to the state in China has been overstated; the hegemonic form of Chinese citizenship today links participation and welfare entitlement to membership in a collective unit in a specific locality. This article presents an ethnographic account of the operation of this “normal” form of local citizenship in resident and villager committees in Tianjin. These committees combine participatory and welfare dimensions of citizenship in one institutional setting. Here, citizens are bound to the state through a face-to-face politics that acts both as a mechanism of control and a channel for claims-making, a mode of rule I term “socialized governance,” which blurs the boundaries between political compliance and social conformity, and makes social norms a strong force in the citizenship order. While variably achieved in practice, this form of citizenship represents an ideal that shapes conditions for politics and perceptions of inequality.

/pdf/local-politics-local-citizenship-socialized-governance-in-1hq71j7dmp.pdf

Local politics, local citizenship: socialized governance in contemporary China

This article has three objectives: 1) to assess the contribution of villager self-government to the development of community councils in urban China; 2) to discuss whether there are lessons to be learned from the experiments in urban community councils relevant to the building of rural communities; and 3) most importantly, to raise theoretical issues common to both villager self-government and urban community councils. In fulfilling these three aims, this article will further understanding of the expansion of grassroots democracy and increasing citizens’ participation in China.The article’s comparative approach will incorporate an analysis of the institutionalization of the ‘Four Democracies’ at the village level and the extent to which they are also being implemented in the different and varying circumstances of the urban experiments and environments. We are interested in whether the villagers’ committees and residents’ committees, especially the latter in their restyled community status, are training gr...

Self-Governance and Community A Preliminary Comparison between Villagers’ Committees and Urban Community Councils

The latest addition to the acclaimed series, this one-of-a-kind visual survey captures the current state of the awakening superpower in the East -- China. Full-color maps and distinctive graphics offer accessible, incisive information about this emergent international player. For centuries the world's most populous country, China now has the fastest growing economy, which threatens to surpass the United States. The profound changes occurring in China are illustrated in this atlas, along with some clashes of priorities: between population growth and the one-child family; human rights and political stability; energy needs and the environment.

The State of China Atlas

This magnificently produced atlas provides a unique visual survey of the profound economic, political, and social changes taking place in China, as well as their implications for the world at large. China has the world's fastest-growing economy and is the second-largest trading nation. With its pro-entrepreneurial outlook and population of 1.3 billion, it offers unique opportunities for domestic and overseas investors. This dynamic volume provides an abundance of information on China's new wealth, growing unemployment, mass migration to the cities, and trade disputes. The book is completely revised and updated: vivid full-color maps convey a wealth of information quickly and efficiently. It offers comprehensive information on China's population, employment, agriculture, industry, and economics.

The State of China Atlas: Mapping the World's Fastest Growing Economy

Following on from the development of a market orientated economy and from the promotion of village governance in China, experiments (not all in different cities) have been taking place as precursors to the reform of urban basic level governance and below. The experiments have also been taking place at that time crucial to China’s growing participation in the global community. Bilateral trade relations, regional associations and membership in the WTO are changing the nature of the urban landscape with a profound impact on grassroots governance. We argue that the pressure to innovate is producing both competition and tension between the experiments that seek administrative and managerial effectiveness and efficiency and those that wish to promote representation and participation as well. Based on our fieldwork that covered six cities (Shenyang, Qingdao, Tianjin, Beijing, Shanghai and Wuhan), we introduce typical cases of these two patterns of experiments and discuss why the difference in emphasis has come about. For this paper we have selected a relatively prosperous city, Qingdao and a relatively poor city, Shenyang as case studies.

Eight grannies with nine teeth between them: Community construction in China

Following the reforms of basic-level governance in the countryside, the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is now implementing community construction in the urban areas. The rural reforms centred on the introduction
of free elections for the village committees and on enhancing the transparency of the village ﬁnances, with a view to increasing the accountability of the village authorities to the villagers. On the other hand, the aims
of urban community construction involve improvements in various areas,
including: providing services such as welfare, sanitation, environment, 
and public security; implementing democracy and autonomy at the grassroots level; and maintaining and strengthening the control over the urban
populace.

Party Work in the Urban Communities

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