From the Heavens to the Markets: Governing Agricultural Drought under Chinese Fragmented Authoritarianism

Abstract

The applicability of liberal governance models in authoritarian contexts has been widely debated. This study contributes to this debate by using a Foucauldian analytic of apparatuses of security to understand how Chinese state actors used the liberalization of agricultural markets to indirectly mitigate against the risk of droughts. Apparatuses of security, which rely on indirect governance through market and biopolitical mechanisms, were proposed by Foucault to explain the emergence of governmentality in liberal states. The Chinese state has been described as a system of fragmented authoritarianism, wherein state actors are isolated from and compete with one another. Food policy in the early People’s Republic of China extended this isolation to the point of encouraging local autarky at the county level. Around the year 2000, local officials in northwest China began promoting the replacement of subsistence agriculture with drought-resistant commercial agriculture as a means of mitigating against drought. This shifted the source of risk of food shortfalls from an environmental risk of drought to a state-mediated market risk and displaced the long-standing model of local autarky providing food security. By illustrating the dynamics of how Chinese state actors govern nature through market mechanisms, this study contributes to theorizations of how liberalization can function to govern nature in authoritarian contexts. Key Words: apparatuses of security, China, drought, governmentality, water–food security.

自由主义的治理模式在威权脉络中的应广受辩论。本研究运用傅柯对于安全配置（apparatuses）的分析, 理解中国政府行动者如何运用农业市场的自由化, 间接减轻乾旱的风险, 从而对上述辩论做出贡献。傅柯所提出的安全配置, 倚赖通过市场与生命政治机制的间接治理, 用来解释治理术在自由主义国家中的浮现。中国政府向来被描绘为破碎的威权主义系统, 其中各个国家行动者被各自孤立并相互竞争。中国人民共和国早期的粮食政策, 将此般孤立延伸至鼓励农村层级的在地自力更生之程度。西元2000之际, 中国西北部的地方官员, 开始推动以抗旱的商业作物来取代粮食作物, 作为缓解乾旱的工具。这麽做, 将粮食短缺的风险来源, 从乾旱的环境风险转换成国家媒介的市场风险, 并取代了在地自力更生以提供粮食安全的长期模式。通过描绘中国政府行动者如何通过市场机制治理自然之动态, 本研究对于理论化自由化如何能够用在威权脉络中用来治理自然做出贡献。 关键词：安全配置, 中国, 乾旱, 治理术, 水—粮食安全。

La aplicabilidad de modelos de gobernanza liberal en contextos autoritarios ha sido ampliamente debatida. Este estudio contribuye en este debate usando una analítica foucaultiana de aparatos de seguridad para entender cómo actores del estado chino usaron la liberalización de los mercados agrícolas para mitigar indirectamente contra el riesgo de sequías. Los aparatos de seguridad, que dependen de la gobernanza indirecta gracias a mecanismos biopolíticos y de mercado, fueron propuestos por Foucault para explicar la aparición de gobernabilidad en estados liberales. El estado chino ha sido descrito como un sistema de autoritarismo fragmentado, en donde los actores del estado están aislados entre sí y compiten unos con otros. Al comienzo de la República Popular de China, la política alimentaria extendió ese aislamiento hasta el punto de estimular la autarquía local a nivel de condado. Alrededor del año 2000, oficiales locales en la China del noroeste empezaron a promover el remplazo de la agricultura de subsistencia con una agricultura comercial resistente a las sequías, como un medio de mitigación contra la sequía. Esto cambió la fuente del riesgo del déficit de alimentos desde un riesgo de sequía ambiental a un riesgo de mercado mediado por el estado, y desplazó el modelo de vieja data de la autarquía local como fuente de seguridad alimentaria. Ilustrando la dinámica de cómo los actores del estado chino gobiernan la naturaleza a través de mecanismos de mercado, este estudio contribuye a la teorización del modo como la liberalización puede funcionar para gobernar la naturaleza dentro de contextos autoritarios.

Palabras clave:

• aparatos de seguridad
• China
• gobernabilidad
• seguridad de agua-alimentos
• sequía

Notes

1 Anding District is also the designated beneficiary of the Tao River Transfer, an interbasin transfer project. As of the 2017 growing season (three years after opening), however, farmers were not reliably receiving irrigation water.

Additional information

Funding

This research was financially supported by: the U.S. Department of Education’s Fulbright Hays program (award P022A090013), the National Science Foundation (award 0927391), the Political Geography Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers, the University of Colorado’s Beverly Sears program, and the University of Delaware Global Scholars Program.

Notes on contributors

Afton Clarke-Sather

AFTON CLARKE-SATHER is an Assistant Professor in the Program in Geography at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, Duluth, MN 55812. E-mail [email protected]. His research interests include water governance in rural areas of the United States and China.