Central–Local Relations in Land Planning Governance in Contemporary China: A Review from the Structural, Process, and Cultural Perspectives

Abstract

Land planning plays an important role in the economic and social development of a developing country, such as China. Studies have started to focus on the topic of central and local relations in land planning systems; however, the picture of central–local relations presented by different studies has not been classified and distinguished. From the perspectives of structure, process, and culture, this paper reviews recent studies on the relationship between central and local governments in land planning governance and summarizes the existing research status and shortcomings, aiming to point out directions for future research. The results indicate that (1) existing studies provide a simple sketch of central–local relations, focusing on the structural and process perspectives and paying less attention to the cultural perspective; (2) the points of view among these studies conflict, leading to a lack of systematic theory and consensus regarding central–local relations in land planning; and (3) the process perspective is currently a hot topic that involves issues of central and local behavior, such as land planning execution, planning policy innovation, and public goods provision, but studies do not adopt an in-depth methodology. Therefore, we suggest that future research should be developed in four dimensions, namely the construction of a conceptual model, the expansion of existing theories, the application of new methods, and the integration of research perspectives.