Experimental state rescaling, goal-oriented governance, and urban transformation in China: The case of Lanzhou

Abstract

This study views decentralization and centralization as complementary strategies for balancing state control and local autonomy, with the goal of exploring effective governance under authoritarian regimes. We examine the governance framework the central government employs to balance “encouraging local autonomy” and “protecting the centrality of regulation,” analyzing urban development and the central-local interaction under this governance framework. We believe that goal-oriented governance with information transmission at its core is the key to reaching such equilibrium, accompanied by two critical governance techniques: hierarchical planning systems and decentralized experimentation. The hierarchical planning system, with the auxiliary evaluation mechanism, passes down national goals and provides administrative guidance to local governors. Meanwhile, the procedural and experimental nature of plan formation has encouraged local policy innovation and bottom-up information feedback. Under goal-oriented governance and manageable experimentation, urban development decisions are formulated, and urban transformation takes place. The study deepens our understanding of the tentative nature of China's state rescaling, i.e., the search for a balance between state control and local autonomy to defuse governance problems at a given time. It also broadens our understanding of China’s policy-making and urban governance as a wavering multi-level interaction rather than a dichotomous process of centralization and decentralization.