Re-building regulation and re-inventing governance in the Pearl River Delta, China

Abstract

Theorists often engage with arguments concerning restructuring post-reform Chinese cities and regions. Their works are quite persuasive about how the Chinese state has experienced an irreversible process of decentralisation and market reform. Nonetheless, these studies expose a number of domains in which such unidirectional analysis could conceivably be enhanced. Reflecting on two cases in the Pearl River Delta, the article has developed a new theoretical perspective to interpret China's state restructuring. Instead of treating the state simply as an internally coherent and unidirectionally transformed system, the state has become a contested terrain under dramatic re-configuration. © 2012 Copyright Editorial Board, Urban Policy and Research.