This book introduces readers to the current social and economic state of China since its restructuring in 1949.
- Provides insights into the targeted institutional change that is occurring simultaneously across the entire country
- Presents context-rich accounts of how and why these changes connect to (if not contradict) regulatory logics established during the Mao-era
- A new analytical framework that explicitly considers the relationship between state rescaling, policy experimentation, and path dependency
- Prompts readers to think about how experimental initiatives reflect and contribute to the ‘national strategy’ of Chinese development
- An excellent extension of ongoing theoretical work examining the entwinement of subnational regulatory reconfiguration, place-specific policy experimentation, and the reproduction of national economic advantage
Table of Contents
Series Editor’s Preface viii
Acknowledgements ix
1 Introduction 1
Part I A Geographical-Historical Re‐appraisal 27
2 Chinese State Spatiality as a Complex Palimpsest 29
Part II Conceptual Parameters 63
3 State Rescaling, Policy Experimentation and Path‐dependency in post‐Mao China: A Dynamic Analytical Framework 65
Part III State Rescaling in the Pearl River Delta and Chongqing 83
4 Becoming ‘More Special than Special’ I: The Pressures and Opportunities for Change in Guangdong 85
5 Becoming ‘More Special than Special’ II: Hengqin and Qianhai New Areas as National Frontiers of Financial Reforms 112
6 State Rescaling in and Through Chongqing I: The State as Economic Driver 145
7 State Rescaling in and Through Chongqing II: The Politics of Path‐dependency 174
8 Concluding Reflections 196
References 209
Index 230
