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Abstract
It is clear that some subnational governments are better than others at orchestrating major policy programs, yet important questions remain about how and why subnational government capacity varies from case to case. Scholarship that emphasizes political agency in explaining subnational policy outcomes is not always clear as to where such agency comes from. Meanwhile, research that defines the power of subnational units in terms of their formal administrative authority, fiscal capacity, and political status does not fully explain how these structural endowments translate into effective agency. This article works toward a conception of subnational government capacity better able to integrate these approaches and bridge the agency-structure divide. I call for greater attention to the connective structures that enable subnational governments to take the initiative in policymaking and mobilize resources, stressing provinces’ internal cohesion and upward political ties. To illustrate the need for a broader conception of subnational capacity, and to show the importance of connective power in action, I analyze the contrasting outcomes of regional development strategies in two Chinese provinces.
Notes
Disclosure statement
The author reports no conflicts of interest. The author alone is responsible for the content and writing of this article.
Funding
This article draws on research that was supported by several funding sources. The author is grateful for funding from the Social Science Research Council, the Harvard Committee on General Scholarships, and various research centers at Harvard University, including the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, the Asia Center, the Fairbank Center, and the Ash Center of the Harvard Kennedy School.
Notes on contributor
Kyle Jaros is a China Public Policy Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center. His research examines the politics of subnational development and central-local relations in China. He received his PhD from the Department of Government at Harvard University, and starting in September 2016, he will be an Associate Professor in the Political Economy of China at the University of Oxford’s School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies.
Notes
1 Chung, Central Control and Local Discretion in China.
2 Chung, “Shandong's Strategies of Economic Reform in Foreign Economic Relations.”
3 Forster, “The Political Economy of Post-Mao Zhejiang: Rapid Growth and Hesitant Reform,”145–211.
4 Thun, Changing Lanes in China.
5 Luo and Shen, “A Study on Inter-city Cooperation in the Yangtze River Delta Area,” 52–62.
6 Yu and Wang, “New Agenda for the Study of Chinese Governance,” 21–40.
7 Li, “Provincial Discretion and National Power,” 778–804; Chung, Central Control and Local Discretion in China; Donaldson, Small Works.
8 Marks et al., “Measuring Regional Authority,” 111–121; Falleti, Decentralization and Subnational Politics in Latin America.
9 Heilmann, “Maximum Tinkering under Uncertainty Unorthodox Lessons from China,” 450–462; Zheng, De Facto Federalism in China; Rithmire, Land Bargains and Chinese Capitalism.
10 Chung gives the example of Anhui’s early adoption of rural reforms as an illustration of bold subnational leadership behavior that helped create local economic gains.
11 Lieberthal and Oksenberg, Policy Making in China, 23–24.
12 Sinha, The Regional Roots of Developmental Politics in India, 15; Gibson, “Boundary Control.”
13 For instance, Li (Citation1997) notes Shanghai’s unusually high degree of influence in central decision-making; Lam, “Central-Provincial Relations amid Greater Centralization in China,” 339.
14 Chung, Central Control and Local Discretion in China; Rudolph and Rudolph, “The Iconization of Chandrababu,’’ 18; Tan, “Growth Disparity in China,” 735–759; Donaldson, Small Works.
15 Marks et al., “Measuring Regional Authority,” 111–121; Falleti, Decentralization and Subnational Politics in Latin America; Dickovick, “The Measure and Mismeasure of Decentralisation,’’ 183–210.
16 Marks et al., “Measuring Regional Authority,” 111–121.
17 Falleti, Decentralization and Subnational Politics in Latin America; Marks et al., “Measuring Regional Authority,” 111–121; Dickovick, “The Measure and Mismeasure of Decentralisation,’’ 183–210.
18 Li, “Provincial Discretion and National Power,’’ 778–804; Chung, “Deputy-provincial Cities,” 111–126.
19 Falleti, Decentralization and Subnational Politics in Latin America; Dickovick, “The Measure and Mismeasure of Decentralisation,” 183–210.
20 Lieberthal and Oksenberg, Policy Making in China, 23–24; Luo and Shen, “Why City-Region Planning Does Not Work Well in China,” 207–217; Solinger and Jiang, “When Central Orders and Promotion Criteria Conflict.”
21 Marks et al., “Measuring Regional Authority,” 111–121.
22 Tarrow, “Introduction.”
23 Falleti, Decentralization and Subnational Politics in Latin America; Hutchcroft, “Centralization and Decentralization in Administration and Politics,” 23–53; Marks et al., “Measuring Regional Authority,” 111–121.
24 Huang and Sheng, “Political Decentralization and Inflation.”
25 Sheng, “Authoritarian Co-Optation, the Territorial Dimension,” 71.
26 This is often deliberate, of course. Marks et al. (Citation2008) acknowledge that they are only trying to capture the ‘formal authority’ of subnational governments, without tackling the more complex question of why some subnational governments are more powerful than others when it comes to influencing policy outcomes and politics.
27 Sheng, “Authoritarian Co-Optation, the Territorial Dimension,” 71.
28 Lam, “Central-Provincial Relations amid Greater Centralization in China,” 339.
29 Kohli, State-Directed Development; Montero, “Delegative Dilemmas and Horizontal Logics,” 58; Murali, “Economic Liberalization.”
30 Beyond formal institutions, cultural and ideational factors can also affect the internal cohesion of subnational units. For instance, as Singh (2011) and Kennedy (Citation2014) note in their analysis of India’s regional development politics, the extent to which a given subnational unit has a strong political tradition and sense of collective identity can affect the ease of making and carrying out policies in the name of that unit. In China, some provinces and localities historically have had stronger regional identities and greater regional autonomy than others (Whitney Citation1970; Lieberthal and Oksenberg Citation1988, 341). This may continue to affect the degree of autonomy they enjoy vis-à-vis higher levels, as well as the degree of legitimacy and broader public and elite support subnational policy initiatives enjoy.
31 As Hutchcroft (Citation2001) notes, ‘…an important question of decentralization, whether deconcentration or devolution, involves specification of which level is to be strengthened. It is quite possible, for example, that ‘decentralization’ could build up the provinces at the expense of both the national and the municipal levels of government. This process may lack a name, but it does exist as an empirical reality.’
32 Mertha, “China’s ‘Soft’ Centralization,” 791–810.
33 While such ties to higher-level actors might at first glance appear to be a constraint on the autonomy of subnational authorities, arguably such ties on balance enhance the ability of subnational leaders to take action and to mobilize resources behind their goals. Unlike the formal relationships of accountability that subnational authorities in centralized systems have to their political and administrative superiors (such as China’s cadre evaluation system), informal, patron-client style relationships of accountability are based less on the governance behavior of subordinates and more on expectations of political loyalty. What matters most to high-level patrons at the center probably is not whether a client at the provincial level executes his policy vision to the letter but whether this client provides political support at key moments.
34 Chung, Central Control and Local Discretion in China; Lieberthal and Oksenberg, Policy Making in China, 350–351.
35 Tan, “China’s Provincial Party Secretaries,” 195–196; Shih, Factions and Finance in China; Shirk, “The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China.”
36 Chung, Central Control and Local Discretion in China.
37 Ibid.; Tan, “China’s Provincial Party Secretaries,” 195–196.
38 Shih et al., “Getting Ahead in the Communist Party,” 166–187.
39 Sinha, The Regional Roots of Developmental Politics in India.
40 Fan, “Of Belts and Ladders,” 421; Wei, Regional Development in China; Li and Wu, “The Transformation of Regional Governance in China,” 55–99.
41 Gu et al., 省域城镇化：战略规划研究 (Provincial Urbanization: Strategic Planning Research).
42 Xu, “Governing City-Regions in China,” 157–185; Lam, “Central-Provincial Relations amid Greater Centralization in China,” 339.
43 In some form, this goal dates back to the 1950s, when provincial authorities in Hunan proposed the idea of building up Changsha, Zhuzhou, and Xiangtan into a Mao Zedong City. The idea resurfaced in the 1980s, with calls by provincial government researchers for a CZX economic area to help spur faster economic growth and reform in the province. See Ban (Citation2011).
44 Tong, (童中贤). 城市群整合轮：基于中部城市群整合机制的实证分析 (Integration of Urban Agglomeration: The Empirical Study on Urban Agglomeration Integration Mechanism of Central China).
45 Liangxing Ban, 湖南省长株潭两型办, (Hunan Chang-Zhu-Tan Two-Type Society Construction Office). 两型社会’建设在湖南: 湖南《两型社会》建设的规划体系 (Building an Eco-Friendly and Energy-Efficient Society in Hunan); Jaros, “The Politics of Metropolitan Bias in China.”
46 Between 1997 and 2005, Hunan’s share of GDP had climbed from 16 percent to 23 percent, and between 2001–2005, Changsha captured 30% of FAI in Hunan (CDO; author’s calculations).
47 Lam, “Central-Provincial Relations amid Greater Centralization in China,” 339.
48 As Heilmann and Melton (Citation2013) note, state-level approval of regional development plans gives provinces political authorization – a so-called ‘imperial sword’ (shangfang baojian) – to embark on new governance experiments and mobilize policy support and financing from state institutions.
49 Jaros, “The Politics of Metropolitan Bias in China.”
50 For example, Hunan launched work on an inter-city commuter railway system to link Changsha, Zhuzhou, Xiangtan, and other nearby cities (Liangxing Ban Citation2011). Efforts to build a major automotive industry cluster in Changsha’s Economic and Technological Development Zone also took off (China Small and Medium City Task Force Citation2013).
51 CDO (China Data Online).
52 CDO; author's calculations.
53 World Bank, “China: Governance, Investment Climate, and Harmonious Society.”
54 Lam, “Central-Provincial Relations amid Greater Centralization in China,” 339.
55 Indeed, Zhang boasted of the benefit of these personal ties for his ability to attract investment to and get things done in Hunan (21 Shiji jingji baodao 3/17/2006).
56 Li, “China’s Midterm Jockeying.”
57 Liangxing Ban, 湖南省长株潭两型办, (Hunan Chang-Zhu-Tan Two-Type Society Construction Office). 两型社会’建设在湖南: 湖南《两型社会》建设的规划体系 (Building an Eco-Friendly and Energy-Efficient Society in Hunan), 6–11.
58 Author?s interview in Beijing 2012.
59 Zhang (张春贤), “推进新型工业化要着力在深化、加速、带动上下功夫 (To Push Forward New-Style Industrialization, We Must Gather Strive to Deepen, Accelerate, and Spur along High and Low-Level Work), 9.
60 Jaros, “The Politics of Metropolitan Bias in China,” 221.
61 Liangxing Ban, 湖南省长株潭两型办, (Hunan Chang-Zhu-Tan Two-Type Society Construction Office). 两型社会’建设在湖南: 湖南《两型社会》建设的规划体系 (Building an Eco-Friendly and Energy-Efficient Society in Hunan), 6–11.
62 Wong, “China: National Development and Sub-National Finance.”
63 China Directory, various years.
64 Platt, Provincial Patriots.
65 Luo and Shen, “Why City-Region Planning Does Not Work Well in China,” 207–217.
66 Ibid.; Luo (罗小龙), “长江三角洲地区的城市合作与管治 (Urban Cooperation and Governance in the Yangtze River Delta Region).”
67 Jiangsu’s Riverside Development strategy achieved more implementation success than the Metropolitan Circle plan, but it too ultimately encountered implementation difficulties and mounting political pushback. Jiangsu changed tack again in the late 2000s, announcing in 2007 that it would prioritize a Coastal Development strategy.
68 With a per capita income of 11,765 yuan in 2000, Jiangsu ranked sixth among China’s provincial units. The province also ranked as China’s fourth largest generator of local fiscal revenue in 2000. See China Data Online.
69 Several of Jiangsu’s cities ranked among the best in China in a 2005 World Bank survey in terms of their institutional environment for foreign and domestic firms. See World Bank (Citation2006).
70 Jacobs, “Uneven Development: Prosperity and Poverty in Jiangsu,” 139.
71 Wei, “Regional Development in China,” 173; Wong, “China: National Development and Sub-National Finance.”
72 Author?s interviews in Jiangsu 2013.
73 China Directory, various years.
74 Author?s interview in Jiangsu 2012.
75 Jacobs, “Uneven Development,” 141.
76 Author?s interviews in Jiangsu 2013.
77 Zheng, De Facto Federalism in China; Gibson, “Boundary Control”; Hutchcroft, “Centralization and Decentralization in Administration and Politics,” 23–53.
78 Interviews were conducted with government policy experts, urban planners, and local academics in Beijing, Changsha, Nanjing, and Suzhou during 2012 and 2013. Interview subjects are kept anonymous in accordance with the author’s approved research protocol. Additional information on the nature and timing of interviews can be provided upon request.