Attracting the remote emperor’s attention: local policy entrepreneurship in China’s policy experimentation under hierarchy

ABSTRACT

Scholars have paid little attention to the mechanisms of locally initiated national policy experiments. This article reveals why some lower-level governments in China can successfully promote bottom-up policy experimentation. With a historical case study of Kunshan, we find that local policy entrepreneurs effectively deploy the nexus of related strategies to attract the central attention. The persistent bottom-up policy experimentation is driven by the interaction between structure-level and actor-level factors through historical evolution, while local economic structure matters for sharping policy entrepreneurs’ innovative abilities. This study contributes to unpacking the mechanisms of bottom-up policy experimentation under hierarchy by connecting policy entrepreneurship with experimental governance.

KEYWORDS:

• Policy experimentation
• local government
• policy entrepreneurship

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1. This paper generically uses the term special economic zone to encompass the range of modern free zone types worldwide. Sources: FIAS, Special Economic Zones: Performance, Lessons Learned, and Implications for Zone Development, Washington, DC: World Bank, 2008.

2. Harvard Business School examines how Kunshan became the richest county-region through globalization and industrialization. See: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=43732.

3. Source: Evaluation reports of national ETDZs, Ministry of Commerce of China, http://www.mofcom.gov.cn/.

4. Interview with Board of Management of Kunshan ETDZ, 19 September 2019.

5. Oral history material of Wu, Kequan. 22 September 2002.

6. Interview with a retired local leader, 20 September 2019.

7. Interview with a retired local leader, 20 September 2019.

8. Interview with a retired local leader, 29 August 2017.

9. For example, the tax rate for companies was reduced from 33% to 15% in national SEZs in the 1980s and 1990s, which empowered Kunshan to attract extensive FDI after 1992.

10. Interview with Board of Management of Kunshan ETDZ, 20 June 2016 &19 September 2019.

11. Sources: Statistics of Kunshan and interviews with the Department of Development and Reform of Kunshan.

12. Interview with the Taiwan Affairs Office of Kunshan, 19 June 2016.

13. Interview with the Development and Reform Commission of Kunshan, 29 August 2017.

14. Oral history material of Xuan, Binlong. 1 June 2009.

15. Interview with a retired local leader, 20 September 2019.

16. Interview with the Development and Reform Commission of Kunshan, 20 April 2020.

17. Interview with a senior official from the Minister of Commerce, 15 August 2021.

18. Interview with Development and Reform Commission of Kunshan, 18 June 2016.

19. Interview with the Development and Reform Commission of Kunshan, 29 August 2017.

20. Interview with a senior official of the Taiwan Affair Office of the State Council, 5 July 2020.

21. Interview with a retired local leader, 25 March 2020.

22. Interview with a senior official of the Minister of commerce, 19 May 2021.

23. Interview with the Development and Reform Commission of Kunshan, 6 July 2021.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2021ECNU-HWCBFBLW005), Shanghai Pujiang Program (21PJC035) and the National Social Science Foundation of China (17BZZ076)

Notes on contributors

Zhipeng Ye

Zhipeng Ye is Assistant Professor in the School of Public Administration, East China Normal University. He obtained his PhD in public administration from Tsinghua University, and was hosted as a yearly academic guest at University of Zurich. His research involves regional political economy, central-local relations in contemporary China, as well as China’s party-state governance. His articles have been accepted for publication in the China: An International Journal, Chinese Public Administration, and Economic Research (in Chinese), among others.

Weixu Wu

Weixu Wu is Assistant Professor at the School of Public Policy & Management, Tsinghua University, China. His research interests mainly in political development of countries in transition, executive and legislative relations, regional and industrial development. His research has appeared in several journals, such as The China Review, Journal of Contemporary China, Chinese Public Administration Review.