Experimentalist governance under hierarchy through leading small groups: a solution to power fragmentation?

ABSTRACT

Taking policy experimentation in several selected pilot sites as test beds prior to the implementation nationwide has emerged as a notable phenomenon amidst China’s reform trajectories. However, the country’s combined party-state authoritarian governance structure and relatively fragmented bureaucratic system have presented challenges to this experimentation process. This paper investigates the dynamic interplay between experimentalist governance and hierarchy in China by examining how hierarchical controls facilitate the implementation of experimentalist practice in the case of Wujin rural land reform. It reveals that the establishment of leading small groups (LSGs) at each administrative layer has aided in the materialization of local experimentation by enhancing the bargaining power of lower-level governmental entities and streamlining the vertical communication process across the lengthy administrative hierarchies. This mechanism also mitigates regulatory gaps among different branches of governmental departments responsible for land resources management. The political design of LSGs manifests the Chinese central government’s strategic commitment to promoting experimentalist governance while exerting careful control over the varied sub-national implementation practices, exemplifying the increasing feature of top-level design in China’s current policy experimentation and governance efforts.

KEYWORDS:

• Experimentalist governance
• bureaucracy
• leading small groups
• rural land reform
• China

Acknowledgments

This research is supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China (22CGL058), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2022M721662), and the Jiangsu Provincial Excellent Postdoctoral Scheme (2022ZB353).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/17516234.2024.2342170.

Notes

1. In the context of urban planning and development, the ‘red line’ refers to an urban construction boundary or limit established by local government authorities to regulate and control urban growth.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation [2022M721662], the National Social Science Foundation of China [22CGL058], and the Ministry of Education Social Science Key Research Center Major Project [22JJD630023].

Notes on contributors

Changchang Zhou

Changchang Zhou is a lecturer of School of Public Administration, Nanjing Normal University. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include China’s rural land reform, policy experimentation, and urban governance. Her work has been published in Land Use Policy, Journal of Urban Affairs, etc.

Rong Cai

Rong Cai is an Assistant Professor in the School of Government at Sun Yat-sen University. Rong graduated with a PhD in Urban Planning from the University of Hong Kong in 2020. Her research interests lie in neighborhood governance,policy experimentation and gentrification. Rong’s work has been published in journals such as Urban Studies, Urban Geography, Cities and Journal of Urban Affairs, etc.