Central-local Relations Research Articles

Navigating Central-Local Dynamics

This paper examines the central-local relation between Beijing and Hong Kong in the final stage of the COVID-19 combat, by analyzing Hong Kong's policy responses regarding public space governance in 2022. Drawing on the combined theoretical insights of governance diffusion and political steering, this study investigates how Hong Kong governed its public spaces during the dramatic shifting pandemic measures – from China's initial “zero-tolerance” policy at the start of 2022, to the complete embrace of the global “co-existence” norm towards the end of the year. Through the analysis of publicly available data, the findings not only offer nuanced insights into the complex central-local dynamics in governance during the pandemic, but also highlight the broader implications of the rise of authoritarian statehood in potentially threatening the sustainability of Hong Kong's neoliberal governance system in the future.

China’s marine eco-environment law enforcement from the perspective of the responsibility system: Dilemmas and solutions

As the final link in promoting the construction of marine ecological civilization, the marine eco-environment law enforcement is crucial to realize the Chinese-style modernization which concerns the harmonious coexistence of humans and nature. This study examined the current state of the responsibility system of China’s marine eco-environment law enforcement through legal doctrinal analysis. Three deficiencies that are hindering the improvement of the effectiveness and efficiency of China’s marine eco-environment law enforcement were identified. Firstly, at central level, the allocation of law enforcement powers fails to reflect the principle of integrated land-sea management. There is also insufficient coordination between marine environmental law enforcement and marine resources law enforcement. Secondly, at local level, there is a lack of cross-departmental and cross-regional law enforcement collaboration mechanisms. Thirdly, regarding central-local relations, the allocation of law enforcement powers and resources is unreasonable, and there are conflicts in the management modes of law enforcement agencies. To enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of China’s marine eco-environment law enforcement, it is necessary to: (i) coordinate central law enforcement powers among different maritime-related administrations based on the principle of integrated land-sea management, and the principle of environment-resources integration; (ii) establish cross-departmental and cross-regional law enforcement collaboration mechanisms; (iii) and appropriately allocate marine eco-environment law enforcement powers between the central and local maritime-related administrations.

Applying Insights from China: A Typology for Subnational Comparative Politics

AbstractIn this study, we draw on theories of subnational analysis and comparison to introduce a novel framework for better understanding central-local dynamics in China. We argue that careful consideration along the dimensions of interests and information of national and subnational actors can allow us to predict how the central state evaluates local actors, variation in local implementation, and the potential for findings to be generalized to settings beyond China. We apply this 2$$\times$$ × 2 typology to several policy areas—social stability, social security, environmental governance, and economic development—to derive expectations about the behavior of central and local states, and identify when researchers can (and cannot) treat subnational units as independent observations. By identifying the underlying dynamics of central-local relations in different policy domains, this typology provides researchers with tools to construct a more precise analytical framework and helps scholars of Chinese politics conducting subnational analyses design research agendas better able to contribute to the larger comparative politics literature.

The challenge of devolved English governance and the rise of political spatial inequality

Abstract The UK is characterised by spatial inequality between and within regions, alongside an over-centralised asymmetric model of governance. In England especially, these features are stark, and throughout the last decade, politicians have responded by forging a distinctive programme of English devolution focused on city-regions. In this article, we analyse the core drivers of the English devolution agenda to understand its impact on the future trajectory of British politics. We identify the predominance of a narrow economic vision of devolution that systematically negates other agendas. The result is a failure to address the trade-offs inherent in the devolution process, alongside an inadequate engagement with the growing demand for democratic revitalisation. In the long-term, we argue that the empowerment of the largest cities in England and the relative neglect of non-urban areas will exacerbate power asymmetries within the UK political system in both centre-periphery and centre-local relations, a phenomenon we term ‘political spatial inequality’. There is a risk of resurgent ‘territorially based populism’ stemming from this uneven political geography which has the potential to exacerbate political instability and significantly reshape UK politics in the wake of Brexit. English devolution is a prescient example of how policy ‘solutions’ can in turn create new problems that pose major challenges for policymakers.

Cadre Personnel Management and the Central–Local Relations of China’s Financial Governance: The Rise of ‘Airlifted’ Vice-Provincial Governors in Financial Affairs

ABSTRACT Since the 18th National Party Congress, many high-ranking business executives and regulators from China’s financial system have been appointed as the so-called ‘airlifted’ vice-provincial governors in financial affairs. This article presents a systematic biographic profile of this group of rising technocrats. It argues that in appointing these central financial elites to provinces, the Party centre has used the cadre personnel management system to promote governance capability building through technocratic professionalization of local administrative leadership, and drive the recentralization of financial governance as Chinese political economy overall shifts towards prioritizing risk management, systemic stability and national security. It also constitutes a venue for cadre grooming. Moreover, this personnel control via airlifting technocratic appointments has often been prompted, and also constrained, by a short-term crisis management imperative to deal with local financial turbulence and restore market stability.

Beyond central-local relations: the introduction of a new perspective on China’s environmental governance model

In recent years, the Chinese government has initiated assertive centralization efforts in its approach to environmental governance. However, the efficacy of these initiatives demonstrates marked variability across different sectors. While the central-local relational framework has traditionally been employed to elucidate these disparities, its explanatory power is showing signs of strain. This paper, through policy analysis and field interviews, investigates regulatory conflicts in land use for ecological and agricultural purposes within China. The findings highlight instances of overlapping jurisdictions and discordant policy objectives among agencies responsible for delineating ecological spaces and agricultural zones. While these conflicts seem to stem from the dynamics between the central and local governments, they more accurately reflect the inherent characteristics of fragmented authoritarianism. This paper aims to expand the theory of fragmented authoritarianism by incorporating the dimension of inter-departmental competition into environmental governance, moving beyond the traditional binary analysis framework of central-local relations. It seeks to understand and critique its limitations from a broader perspective, emphasizing the role of departmental competition within fragmented authoritarianism. By analyzing this internal mechanism, the paper reveals a more nuanced governance landscape, essentially replacing the traditional central-local paradigm with a model that situates departmental competition within the overall context of fragmented authoritarianism. We propose two models for delineating competition among governmental institutions: the bureaucratic model and the charisma model, thereby advancing and deepening the application of fragmented authoritarianism theory in China’s environmental governance. This provides new theoretical insights for understanding the current challenges and developments in China’s environmental governance.

Public services provided after Earthquake 2023 in the Context of Central Government-Local Administration Relations: Mersin Metropolitan Municipality Case

Central government-local administration relations are one of the most problematic mechanisms of our administrative history in structural and functional terms. This study will examine the dynamics of central government and local administration relations from a public policy standpoint, emphasizing the importance of collaborative policymaking and cooperation between the two levels of government. AFAD (disaster and emergency management presidency) faced criticism during the February 2023 earthquake in Türkiye sparking a public debate on the relationship between central and local administrations. The study will focus on Mersin, one of the provinces most affected by the recent earthquakes, and the Mersin Metropolitan Municipality. The Metropolitan Municipality's response to the earthquake in Mersin and the public services provided during the aftermath will be analyzed. The role assumed by Mersin Metropolitan Municipality in the context of disaster management is studied to firstly reveal the potential of local administration in terms of disaster management and secondly to show its relations with the central government. In the study, the analysis of the aid provided to earthquake victims will be based on the data of AFAD and Mersin Metropolitan Municipality. The qualitative analysis of the obtained data will reveal the potential of the central government-local administration relationship with structural and functional mechanisms.

Enhancing urban public service efficiency through the national civilized city policy: an empirical analysis of 282 cities in China from 2005 to 2019

ABSTRACT Public service supply is a cornerstone of urban functionality, with enhancing efficiency being pivotal for sustainable urban development. In China’s urban development strategy, the National Civilized City (NCC) policy stands out as a key tool aimed at bolstering public service efficiency. By analyzing data from 282 Chinese cities spanning 2005 to 2019 and employing the ‘authoritative incentive-technology control’ framework, this study utilizes a fixed-effect regression model to delve into the mechanisms underlying the NCC policy’s impact on public service efficiency. Key findings include: (1) Notably, the NCC policy significantly improves urban public service efficiency, primarily propelled by directives from central authorities (2) The effectiveness of the policy varies across administrative tiers, with a more pronounced impact observed in lower-level cities.(3) Technical control mechanisms, particularly constraint controls, predominantly sustain policy effects (4) The enhancement of urban public services in China hinges on top-down policy incentives, emblematic of a dynamic central-local relationship characterized by the upward transfer of policy power and governance decentralization.

Multiple Effects and Intrinsic Logic in Reshaping the Paradigm of Government Governance Through Digital Technology

Digital technology is profoundly shaping the Chinese governance paradigm. This study presents a multilayered theoretical model comprising the “tool empowerment layer-organizational change layer-system upgrading layer” to elucidate the impacts and underlying logic of digital technology in reshaping this governance paradigm, showing that it is undergoing spiral advancement and incremental optimization. Central-local relations show a transition from “top-down decentralization” to “unified integration”; the intergovernmental structural paradigm shows a transition from “congruent responsibilities” to “integrated collaboration”; risk governance shows a transition from “reactive response” to “proactive prevention”; interface communication shows a transition from “vague delay” to “agile governance”; and finally, resource allocation shows a transition from “unidirectional allocation” to “bidirectional coupling.” These transitions underscore three key logics: technological tool empowerment, organizational adaptive learning, and systemic evolution. The integration of digital technology into government governance is not only reshaping state-society relations but also promoting a dynamic, interconnected, and adaptable governance ecosystem, facilitating harmonious progress between the state and society.

Designated Accountability: Pair-Making Mechanisms and Evolving Central-Local Relations in China’s Targeted Poverty Alleviation

ABSTRACT Top-level design and campaign-style governance have reshaped the dynamics of central-local relations in China during the Xi Jinping era. With an empirical focus on targeted poverty alleviation—a politically charged national agenda in China—this article examines three types of pair-making mechanisms, including the fixed-point paired support mechanism (FSM), the horizontally-twinned support mechanism (TSM), and the subnational peer-to-peer support mechanism (PSM), which are instrumental in both centralizing power and decentralizing responsibilities. Under the current leadership, these pair-making mechanisms have become more politicized, institutionalized, penetrative, and action-focused, with an expanded toolkit for enforcing accountability. They establish a nuanced, comprehensive duty system that transcends hierarchical, regional, and sectoral boundaries, collectively giving rise to a novel form of top-down accountability, conceptualized in this research as ‘designated accountability’. By engineering these pairs, central power has burgeoned. Not only can it prompt various parties to fulfill bureaucratic functions better, but it can also designate and impose tasks beyond their official roles, holding them accountable and ultimately claiming credit for achievements. Designated accountability not only provides fresh insights into new central-local dynamics and broader political implications in the Chinese context but also holds the potential to add to the general theory of political accountability.

Actually existing state entrepreneurialism: From conceptualization to materialization

This paper enriches the understanding of actually existing state entrepreneurialism (SE) through politics of scale, regulatory flexibility, and financialization. The emphasis on “actually existing” uncovers how political discourses are materialized into variegated policy outcomes and territorial politics. The central-local relations and their reinforcement through scalar politics are essential to state regulation, revealing power dynamics in SE. SE represents a distinct governance capacity with regulatory flexibility expressed through state-orchestrated processes designed to meet multifaceted goals. Financialization is instrumentalized in revamping state intervention with commercial and financial logic. Finally, the state is seen as polymorphous in nature given its active stewardship in growth agendas.

일본 정부 간 관계론에 대한 비판적 고찰:기존 연구의 검토와 잃어버린 논점

The purpose of this study is to proceed a critical review of the main approaches to center-local relations and intergovernmental relations in Japanese local governments that have been discussed so far, and to suggest overlooked arguments that have not been discussed in these approaches.
 The main contents are as follows. First, we examine the meaning of theories of intergovernmental relations in Japan. Second, we provide a perspective for analyzing the main approaches. The main analytical factors are intergovernmental intermediary route, intergovernmental administrative resources, and explanatory variables of intergovernmental relations. Third, based on this analytical perspective, we analyze the main approaches on intergovernmental relations in Japan and those characteristics. The main characteristics of current approaches tend to emphasize the administrative route, law-finance resources, the institution as an explanatory variable, and the degree of control of the central government. Fourth. we analyze the form of central government intervention, autonomy from the socioeconomic environment and autonomy from the central government, movability and exit option, and the size of the local government in terms of the exclusively focused on intergovernmental relations in Japan.

Tracing 25 years of 'initiativitis' in central government attempts to join up local public services in England.

Over the last 25 years, central government has attempted to join up local public services in England on at least 55 occasions, illustrating the 'initiativitis' inflicted upon local governments by the large volume and variety of coordination programmes. By analysing and mapping some of the characteristics of these initiatives, we have uncovered insights into the ways central government has sought to achieve local coordination. We observe a clear preference for the use of funding and fiscal powers as a lever, a competitive allocation process, and a constrained discretion model of governance, with some distinct patterns over time. These choices made in the design of initiatives are likely to be shaped by the perceived and real accountability structures within government, and so offer an opportunity to consider how accountability affects, and is affected by, particular programmatic efforts at a local level. This article makes a significant contribution to our understanding of coordination programmes at a central-local government level. By identifying patterns in the approach of government over the last 25 years, it offers an empirical lens to map the 'glacial and incremental' reframing of central-local relations and associated shifts in public accountability. In this way, the article provides more solid foundations to a range of issues - central government's reliance on controlling the reins of funding, the competitive nature of allocation processes, and the enduring centralisation of accountability - that have been much discussed among policymakers, practitioners and researchers, but have lacked clear empirical grounding.

Policy Experimentation as Communication with the Public: Social Policy, Shared Responsibility and Regime Support in China

AbstractResearch on policy experimentation has mainly focused on central–local relations; scholars have paid little attention to the interaction between policy experimentation and the public. We argue that policy experimentation can be used by decision makers as an instrument to communicate with the public, facilitating the building of a social consensus regarding controversial policies. We evaluate the effects of the Chinese government's policy experimentation efforts to promote shared responsibility between the state and individuals for the urban pension system on the public's regime support. Evidence from two rounds of a nationwide survey conducted before and after the policy experiment indicates that the policy experimentation has significantly contributed to citizens’ acceptance of their individual welfare responsibility. Moreover, the image-building of governmental responsibility via official news, with varied intensity across regions, consolidates the political trust of residents while posing a challenge to local government credibility in the long run.

Information asymmetry and vertical collective action dilemma: The case of targeted poverty alleviation in China

AbstractInformation asymmetry is prevalent in the vertical bureaucratic structures of unitary systems. Drawing upon the institutional collective action (ICA) framework and the literature on information politics, this paper investigates the formation of the vertical ICA dilemma and the motivations underlying the collaborative mechanisms to address information asymmetry within the hierarchical bureaucratic structures of the Chinese government. Taking the Targeted Poverty Alleviation campaign as a case, we find a mixture of collective solutions, including informal networks, intergovernmental contracts, delegation, and imposed authority, as alternatives to alleviate the information asymmetry between vertical governments. Our case studies contribute to the literature on central–local relations, information politics, and the development of the vertical ICA framework, which notably incorporates the extent of lower level government autonomy into the determinants of integration mechanisms. In the conclusion, we connect this research to the broader ICA research agenda and studies of the cross‐level policy process, with implications for multi‐level governance in unitary systems like China.

Central–Local Relations in China: A Case Study of Heilongjiang's GMO Ban

AbstractThis study contributes to the research on central–local relations in China by examining local dynamics and defiance. Drawing on the case of a provincial government's defiance against a central policy – Heilongjiang province's 2016 ban on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) – this study shows that despite the unprecedented recentralization push in recent years, local defiance still exists and persists. In addition, this study finds that the Heilongjiang provincial government managed to reduce potential political backlash by feeding the public distrust of GMOs, exploiting the internal divide and central ambiguity over GMOs and, more importantly, skilfully framing its GMO ban as part of its efforts to implement Xi Jinping's Green Development Concept.

The Political Economy of China's Local Debt

AbstractBy analysing the development and operation of local government bonds (LGBs), a new tool fashioned by the Chinese government to finance infrastructure projects, this article improves the understanding of the political economy of China's local debt. We find that the central government uses LGBs to intervene in local debt and pursue policy objectives, and designs a quota system to decide the bond issuing amount and the project selection. When calculating quotas, the central government prioritizes limiting financial risk and achieving national development goals. Local debt should match the fiscal capacity of local governments, and the projects should contribute to the sectors emphasized by the central government as important for national development, reflecting the centralization of central–local relations. However, LGBs hardly fix the problem of local debt, and the pressure to maintain economic growth by expanding infrastructure investment has pushed local debt to an alarming level.

The multiple faces of recentralization: A typology of central-local interactions

ABSTRACT This article seeks to provide a conceptual framework and a methodological apparatus for investigating conflicts between central and local governments. Our work is inspired by contemporary recentralization processes seen in Europe, which are motivated both pragmatically (to counteract the financial crisis) and ideologically (the “illiberal turn”). These phenomena refer to the broader concept of conflict of interest, which is at the core of democratic systems. We see the limiting the autonomy of substatal actors as a sign of democratic crisis. Although our study draws upon empirical phenomena observed in Poland, its ambition is to provide a universal framework to analyze central-local relations. By combining the theoretical distinction between different dimensions of the political universum, with the easy-to-operationalize variables that make up the Local Autonomy Index our paper proposes two typologies to capture, respectively, centralistic actions, and local governments’ reactions. These typologies can be used to map the patterns of central-local relations in particular countries, and facilitate comparative studies.

Cooperative federalism with Chinese characteristics

ABSTRACT In China, the dynamics of the central–local relations vary significantly within legislative, executive, and judicial branches. In the field of law enforcement oversight, signs of cooperative federalism have emerged, presenting a drastic contrast to the unitary system. The lacking of a legal basis to directly supervise local governments forces the National People’s Congress Standing Committee to actively seek cooperation from local governments. Three different approaches have been applied by the top legislature to achieve the goal. Easing the resistance from local governments through delegating the oversight power represents a move of compromise. Removing hurdles affecting law enforcement, reducing law enforcement cost, and soliciting suggestions on statutory revision from localities is a form of reciprocity. Eliminating local protectionism, enhancing cross-regional law enforcement, and sharing law enforcement experiences is an act of altruism.

A city profile of Macau—The rise and fall of a casino city

Macau, one of China's two special administrative regions (SARs), is an island city famous for its flourishing gambling industry. As Macau is the only place in Greater China where gambling is legal, it initially experienced explosive economic growth with the rapid expansion of its gambling sector. Although the meteoric rise of Macau's gambling industry gave the city a glamorous reputation, it also created a homogeneous and fragile industrial structure, which has begun to pose serious problems for Macau. In recent years, Macau has faced increasing political and economic pressure due to dramatic changes in the external environment. In particular, the tremendous impact of COVID-19 and Beijing's expectation of Macau's deeper involvement in China's development agenda, such as the Belt and Road Initiative and the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macau Greater Bay Area, have made it untenable for Macau to maintain a slow pace of economic reform. This city profile examines the continuous decentralization of China's political authority since its reform and opening up and considers the unique central–local relationship between Beijing and Macau from the perspective of intergovernmental relations theory. As an exploratory case study, we focus on how Macau, a SAR with a “high degree of autonomy” promised and claimed by Beijing, has responded to concerns about its industrial restructuring, administrative reform, and sustainable urban development in the face of interventions from Beijing and scrutiny from residents. We argue that Macau's current form of local autonomy is insufficient, and that the Macau government should use an optimal mix of localization strategies to address the concerns of all parties while also complying with Beijing's assertive planning and guidance. We close by analyzing future economic opportunities and political challenges, extracting lessons from history, and offering practical suggestions for enhancing Macau's governance capacity, improving its tourism destination image, and hedging against major risks to the city in the rapidly changing global environment.