Governing Neighborhoods in Urban China: Changing State-Society Relations

by Beibei Tang

Overview

Governing Neighborhoods in Urban China examines the key mechanisms operating at the grassroots level in China that contribute to urban development and increased public support for the legitimacy and authority of the Chinese state. Beibei Tang uncovers new trends and dynamics of urban neighborhood governance since the 2000s to reveal the significant factors that contribute to regime survival.

Tang introduces the concept of hybrid authoritarianism, a governance mechanism an authoritarian state employs to produce governance legitimacy, public support, and regime sustainability. Hybrid authoritarianism is situated in an intermediary governance space between state and society. It accommodates both state and non-state actors, deals with a wide range of governance issues, employs flexible governance strategies, and in this context, ultimately strengthens CCP leadership.

Tang documents processes of hybrid authoritarianism through her focus on various types of urban neighborhoods, including new urban middle-class neighborhoods, and the increasing urbanization of the countryside. Governing Neighborhoods in Urban China provides a conceptual framework that avoids scholarly approaches that tend to reify either one-party autocracy or Western-centric notions of democracy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501769283
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	05/15/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	186
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Beibei Tang is Professor of China Studies, School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou. She is the author of China's Housing Middle Class, and the co-editor of Suzhou in Transition.

What People are Saying About This

Xi Chen

Governing Neighborhoods in Urban China expertly examines practices of grassroots-level governance and explains how they have helped generate regime legitimacy and popular support. Combining theory and rich empirical analysis, this book helps us understand the transformation of urban space and institutions in the reform era.

Marc Blecher

A wonderful book grounded in persuasive and original analysis. The core conceptual and theoretical innovation of Governing Neighborhoods in Urban China is solid, clear, and powerful as well as replete with significant implications while it moves between the Scylla of reified one-party autocracy and the Charybdis of Western-centric democracy.