Redeveloping Chinas Villages in the Twenty First Century

Implementing national policies is a crucial function of the local Chinese bureaucracy and an indispensable part of Beijings overall state capacity. Yet the specifics of how and why local officials interpret and implement such policies have so far escaped detailed attention. In Redeveloping Chinas Villages in the Twenty-First Century, Lior Rosenberg fills this gap by examining the national Village Redevelopment Program, one of Chinas most significant policies of recent decades to promote rural change

Based on Rosenbergs on-site research, Redeveloping Chinas Villages in the Twenty-First Century investigates the Village Redevelopment Programs implementation in both the industrialised county of Chenggu, in Shandong province, and the predominantly agricultural county of Beian, in Anhui province. At the books heart is a puzzle: the program was supposed to prioritise poorer villages, but in both Chenggu and Beiandespite being carried out in surprisingly divergent waysit has subsidised improved infrastructure and services in already industrialised and prosperous villages, while leaving behind poorer ones. In explaining this outcome, Rosenberg elaborates on the larger economic, political and social environment in which Chinese local officials operate, as well as the pressures they face from above. He analyses the dual role played by higher-level authorities, as both policy enablers and thwarters in a system that sanctifies commandism but where the distinction between principals and agents is blurred.