Making a city region a new state space under China's emerging regionalism : evidence from regional strategic development plans in the Pearl River Delta

Abstract

In this study, the state theoretical approach is articulated with regulationist, with a view to conceptualizing new state space from ontological and epistemological dimension. The ontological perspective suggests scale is socially constructed; state regulation is about to secure the economic and extra-economic conditions for capitalist development. Inner state territory (i.e., subnational scale) is a crucial spatial unit whereby state regulation unfolds. The emergence of new spatial scales results from empowerment and control, informing the reterritorialized state regulation can be applied to a distinct geography of socio-economic relations. The epistemological perspective suggests the economic restructuring or globalization is a scale making process. National state restructuring gives rise to denationalization and destatization. Thus, changes in the regime of accumulation from Fordism to post-Fordism reflect a shifting geography for state regulation. The reterritorialized state regulation depicts national state is not a static ensemble yet a qualitative agent. National state restructuring aims to secure the best geographical conditions by creating a new state space, with a view to reproducing the economy and labor. The methodological approach of new state space is further developed whereby new state space can be observed and studied. The key methods include to identify the new scales with reterritorialized regulatory orders and to identify the governance mechanisms applied to the new geography. The capital-labor relationships is an essential subject of state regulation which covers both the production and social reproduction (or consumption). On new state space, a distinct set of capital-labor relationships can be observed. Existing study suggests the city region becomes a focal territorial platform for socio-economic intervention, and city region is institutionally thick with distinct city region governance. Effective city region governance facilitates the political mobilization and mediation. In this process, planning is an effective institutional instrument that articulates specific capital-labor relationships and city region governance. The rise of city region is a state project and city region is new state space as such. This study examines two regional strategic development plans (RSDPs) for the Pearl River Delta Region from a new state space perspective. In particular the study tries to answer how RSDP becomes an important institutional instrument in effectuating the capital-labor relationships. The new state space crystallized from RSDP is an abstract space in which the accumulation system is secured through the detailed elaborations on industrial development, fixed capital and social development strategy. The analysis of two RSDPs shows regional plan is able to trigger strong local commitment in which provincial government takes the leadership in plan’s implementation and monitoring. The promulgation of RSDP reaccentuates a developmental national state under which the pilot economic planning agency retains a strong capacity to mobilize a practical local politics and lobby for the city regionalism using effective institutional narratives. The significance of the research is twofold. In theoretical terms, the emergence of a new state space is presented in the analytical framework of a regulation school. Furthermore, a study of China’s territorial restructuring contributes to comparative research whereby the China’s practices are benchmarked with international literature. The experience of the socialist market economy will add value to Marxist thesis on the state and spatiality. To study China’s spatial restructuring from a new state space perspective uncovers the polymorphous Chinese statehood. In this process, the emerging regionalism combines both decentralization and recentralization into the spatial evolution of China’s subnational territories.