Abstract
Land consolidation is considered an effective solution to revitalize rural areas internationally, and a variant, Rural Comprehensive Land Consolidation (RCLC), is widely practiced in China. RCLC is essentially a rural collective action which needs collaborative governance efforts from multiple stakeholders, who mainly are the local government, rural residents and social enterprises. Commonly, RCLC projects are led by the local government and rely on top-down approaches. In such a process, rural interests are often sacrificed due to the relatively weak status of the rural residents. Also, market forces are not motivated enough for low-cost performance of participation. These result in rural stakeholders' resistance and low future development vitality of the areas which implement RCLC. A more effective collaborative mechanism of RCLC is consequently called for. Under the guidance of collaborative governance theory, it is argued that the Rural Collective Organization (RCO) shows potential to provide ‘facilitative leadership’ to guide the collaboration in RCLC, by playing its multiple roles as a rural interest representative, a grass-roots manager and an independent legal entity in Chinese society. This research proposes a theoretical framework of the potentially optimized RCLC collaborative mechanism which facilitates the collaboration of stakeholders by setting the RCO as the collaborative leader and based on the flexibility of its multiple roles to strengthen bottom-up approaches and invoke multiple forces. A case study is constructed to demonstrate and support this potentially optimized approach. It is shown that the RCO, if flexibly playing its roles in different RCLC affairs, can provide balance between stakeholders and can catalyze stakeholders who may have a low incentive to participate, thus generating innovative outcomes. Based on above observations, we also refine a practice-oriented collaborative model, with prerequisites for its wider application being discussed.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.