Description
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 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
