Gunter Schubert

County and Township Cadres as a Strategic Group: “Building a New Socialist Countryside” in Three Provinces

County and township cadres as strategic actors in policy implementation have only recently become a topic of systematic study for China scholars; in most studies, they have been associated with clientelism and corruption, law-breaking, manipulation of the institutions set up to control them, suppression of local dissent and collective protest, and deficient policy implementation. Cai Yongshun, for example, claims that local cadres create an irresponsible state, “in which its politicians make decisions and allocate resources so as to serve personal political interests which take precedence over public concerns, thereby resulting in the waste of public resources”. Graeme Smith finds that informal cadre networks penetrate the institutional fabric of the county completely and build a “shadow state” which combines personalized rule and bureaucratism, is obsessed with quantitative output and engages in campaign-style,

Effective Policy Implementation in China’s Local State

Effective policy implementation is a core component of the Chinese political system’s adaptability and stability. A thorough investigation of local implementation mechanisms, however, is often hindered by an almost exclusive concentration on implementation efficiency. This article introduces a new analytical framework and suggests focusing on the interactions between the different administrative tiers—counties, townships, and villages—to understand local policy implementation in terms of procedural and outcome effectiveness. It argues that the triangle of central policy design, institutional constraints, and strategic agency of local implementers explains cases of effective policy implementation that can be observed throughout China. By way of studying the “Building of a New Socialist Countryside” in four cases, this article shows how effective policy implementation can be the result of what students of local governance have so far rather treated as obstructive factors, namely performance and cadre evaluation, financial scarcity, limited public participation, and the focus on models.

Strategic Modelling: “Building a New Socialist Countryside” in Three Chinese Counties

Models, pilots and experiments are considered distinctive features of the Chinese policy process. However, empirical studies on local modelling practices are rare. This article analyses the ways in which three rural counties in three different provinces engage in strategies of modelling and piloting to implement the central governments “Building a New Socialist Countryside” ( shehuizhuyi xinnongcun jianshe ) programme. It explains how county and township governments apply these strategies and to what effect. It also highlights the scope and limitations of local models and pilots as useful mechanisms for spurring national development. The authors plead for a fresh look at local modelling practices, arguing that these can tell us much about the realities of governance in rural China today.

Whither local governance in contemporary China? Reconfiguration for more effective policy implementation

Abstract This article describes China’s reorganization of its local governance system since the early 2000s. Policy shifts, administrative restructuring and intensified public inclusion have considerably modified local governance, especially in the country’s vast rural areas and, we argue, have laid the groundwork for continuous and more effective policy implementation amidst increasing complexity and challenges. Based on years of fieldwork on new rural development policies, urbanization programs and private sector development in China, we start by briefly describing the most important developments in local governance, especially at the county level and below. We then concentrate on two aspects with particular relevance: first, we trace the reconfigured characteristics of internal governmental procedures of policy adjustment and implementation. Second, we find new types of external stakeholder inclusion, which we analyze based on the example of local government interactions with private entrepreneurs in promoting development blueprints and strengthening public goods provision. In conclusion, we contend that current Chinese local governance is a dynamic and delicate combination of expanding local administrative autonomy, external actor inclusion and the Party State’s re-emergent aim of pervasive steering. At a minimum, the resulting governance arrangements appear able to generally strengthen the political regime’s implementation capacities.

Das politische System Taiwans

Die Darstellung des politischen Systems Taiwans erfolgt in drei Schritten: Zunachst wird die politische Geschichte Taiwans bis 1945 ausgeleuchtet. Der Fokus der anschliesenden Darstellung liegt dann auf den wirtschaftlichen Modernisierungserfolgen und der politischen Repression unter der autoritaren KMT-Herrschaft (1945–1986/87) sowie auf der Demokratisierung Taiwans seit Mitte der 1980er Jahre. Die Entfaltung und Institutionalisierung der taiwanesischen Zivilgesellschaft wird am Beispiel der Ureinwohnerbewegung und der Arbeiterbewegung diskutiert. Ein besonderes Augenmerk wird anschliesend auf die Funktion und Bedeutung der taiwanesischen Lokalfaktionen fur das politische System gerichtet. Letztlich wird die Entwicklung des sino-taiwanesischen Verhaltnisses seit der demokratischen Transition betrachtet, der wichtigste konditionierende Faktor fur die weitere politische Entwicklung Taiwans.

Weapons of the Rich: Strategic Behavior and Collective Action of Private Entrepreneurs in China

This article, the product of several years of extensive fieldwork, seeks to reinvigorate the debate on China’s private entrepreneurs by arguing that they have become a “strategic group” within the Chinese polity. While they do not openly challenge the current regime, they continuously alter the power balance within the current regime coalition, which connects them to the party-state at all administrative levels. As the future of Chinese socialism depends on the sound development of the private-sector economy and, therefore, on the promotion of private entrepreneurship, it can be expected that entrepreneurial influence within the regime coalition will rise, with inevitable consequences for regime legitimacy and stability.

Taiwan’s Contribution to China’s Economic Rise and Its Implications for Cross-Strait Integration

Most explanations of China’s explosive economic growth in recent decades focus on Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms, but the removal of Mao-era restraints was no guarantee of success for the PRC economy. In fact, China’s economic performance has far outstripped even the most optimistic projections of the 1980s. One central reason for its surprising success is the contribution of foreign investors, among whom the earliest, most persistent and ultimately most influential were Taiwanese investors, the so-called Taishang. Taiwan-originated firms were the key source of capital, management expertise, technology, and contract manufacturing relationships for Mainland China; as such, they were instrumental in the development of China’s export-oriented manufacturing. Despite their outsized role in China’s economic development, Taishang as a cross-Strait ‘linkage community’ have done surprisingly little to alter the political relationship between the two sides. In fact, they contribute to a conceptualization to China as economically unified but politically diverse—an idea that positively resonates with the majority of Taiwan’s populace.

Are Taiwanese Entrepreneurs a Strategic Group?: Reassessing Taishang Political Agency across the Taiwan Strait

This article applies the “strategic group” concept to Taiwanese entrepreneurs ( taishang ), who have businesses in both Taiwan and Mainland China, to analyze their political agency in safeguarding their collective interests. Based on extensive fieldwork, the authors look at taishang collective action in both formal and informal settings to assess whether the taishang can be considered a strategic group in contemporary cross-Strait relations.