From Dissensus to Consensus: State Rescaling and Modalities of Power under the Belt and Road Initiative in Western China

Abstract

Under the Belt and Road Initiative, a new city-regionalism has replaced the independent county system in western China to form a new accumulation regime. Drawing on empirical materials related to the annexation of Guanghan to Deyang, this study delves into three research questions: (1) how a new accumulation regime is enabled by a new state spatial selectivity in western China; (2) how the changing opportunity structure as a result of the upscaling of state power from county to city induced opposition from the local society; and (3) how the local state tactically dissolved the dissents to facilitate the state rescaling process. Methodologically, we present a multiscalar and interscalar analytical framework that links scholarly inquiries at multiple scales. Theoretically, through bringing together the territory–place–scale–network approach and the poststructural theory of state power, we reconceptualize state rescaling as a multidimensional process of (re)organizing and manipulating sociospatial relations to enable crisis management and as a power-laden process that relies on state power exercised to construct compliance or consensus and address dissensus. Empirically, this study substantiates the explanatory power of rescaling theories in both temporal and spatial dimensions by presenting a vivid vignette of crisis-driven state rescaling in western China. It also adds to the proliferating debates on the Belt and Road Initiative through offering a new perspective and updated evidence on the reorientation of China’s interior political, economic, and social systems via a rescaling fix.