‘Neo-collectivisation’ through property rights reforms: Villager empowerment and state building in urbanising China

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Over the past two decades, property rights reforms in China’s peri-urban regions have succeeded in granting villagers individual rights to their collective assets. It has been argued that these reforms will lead to the demise of China’s long-established rural collective system. However, based on in-depth research and case studies in southern China, we conclude that these reform initiatives have been upheld by the state and villagers to sustain and improve, rather than destroy, rural collectivism. The implementation of formal titling through shareholding reforms has not engendered full privatisation and the dissolution of collective entities; instead, it has given rise to an alternative form of rural collectivity that has reshaped the power dynamics between the state and the villagers in daily governance. While this ‘neo-collectivist’ approach appears to have empowered villagers by enhancing their rights to collective assets and benefits, it has also strengthened the governing capacity of the socialist state by extending and legitimising its interventions in Chinese rural communities.