Capacity and Priority: Explaining the Regulatory Roles of Labor Brokers in China's Newly Established Guestworker Program

Abstract

Why do states delegate regulatory responsibilities to labor brokers in guestworker programs? Though much has been written about how labor brokers not only mediate migrant mobility but also participate in guestworker governance, there is limited research on why states grant them such regulatory roles. Drawing on a case study of a guestworker program newly implemented in China in 2017, which incorporated a large number of Vietnamese temporary migrants, I examine why the local government in charge of the program chose to engage private labor dispatch agencies in regulating guestworkers. Based on interviews conducted in the winter of 2021, I argue that the fragmented capacities of local state actors and their divergent policy priorities from the central state contributed to labor brokers’ regulatory roles in guestworker governance. The lack of resources and interdepartmental collaboration constrained the local government's ability to enforce regulations and created opportunities for labor agencies to fill in as informal regulators. Furthermore, the local government's struggle to balance economic development goals with the national government's priorities on border security led to selective enforcement of rules, which strengthened the labor agencies’ regulatory positions. At the same time, labor agencies’ opportunistic behaviors also help stabilize the guestworker system by easing the tension between developmental gains and border security concerns resulting from labor migration.