New urban politics as post-politics of schooling marketization and distribution in entrepreneurial Chinese cities

ABSTRACT

The inadequacy of urban scale in analyzing school system restructuring has generated criticism. Thus, this study interprets school system restructuring as a locally embodied process that produces variegated externalities for local people. This interpretation shifts the position of school system restructuring within the debate on new urban politics (NUP). Following the post-democratic understanding of NUP, we propose three research questions. Firstly, how does school system restructuring produce a new benefit structure that potentially causes dissent from the local society? Secondly, how do different social forces shape the restructuring? Thirdly, how can consensus on the restructuring be reached? We answer by using China as a case study. China has undergone a shift from a public school system to a mixed provision-regulation regime since the 1990s. The comparative analysis of two Chinese cities illustrates the differences in the school system restructuring embedded in local entrepreneurial strategy and the crucial role of the local state in facilitating the restructuring. In Chengdu, school system restructuring has resulted in dissent from middle class households that have the power to reshape the restructuring. In Mianyang, the school system restructuring disadvantaged the working class who was persuaded by the municipality’s discursive strategy to accept the restructuring.

KEYWORDS:

• New urban politics
• education marketization
• school system restructuring
• city entrepreneurialism
• post politics

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Prof. Nathan McClintock and the reviewers for their thoughtful comments and efforts towards improving this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In China, the rural population takes a half of the total population, and there is a rural-urban dual system of education, housing, land and welfare. The enrollment, management and financing systems of schools are different between urban China and rural China. In this paper, school system in the context of China refers to urban school system. We use the term “school system” in the main text given that such a rural-urban dichotomy in social systems doesn’t exist in most countries.

2 Established during the planned economy period, danwei served as multifunctional urban institutions that encompassed various aspects of urban livelihoods. Each danwei created its own jobs, housing, child care, schools, clinics, shops, services, etc, providing essential social resources to its members when the market economy had not yet fully developed.

3 This term comes from the National Civilised City program of Chinese central government's Publicity Department. It is an honorary title granted by the central government for governing capitalist cities with party-state administration of society and space. The commission awards the title to urban governments in recognition of attainment of party-designated standards in several categories including promotion of the rule of law, public security, development of the consumer environment, provision of new cultural facilities, volunteer social services organisation and environmental quality.

Additional information

Funding

This research project is funded by the Dissertation Fellowship of Peking University-Lincoln Institute Center for Urban Development and Land Policy (Ref: DS-20202001-ZMZ).