Beyond Tiao-Kuai? Fragmented and Fused Urban Governance in China

• In Event: City and Local Governance in China

Abstract

Comparative and China-focused scholars of intergovernmental relations have long distinguished between areal governance, based on general purpose jurisdictions, and functional governance, based on special purpose jurisdictions, highlighting strengths and weaknesses of each approach. Increasingly, however, subnational governance structures in China fail to fit cleanly into this typology and even challenge its premises. The shortcomings of mainstream typologies are especially visible when it comes to bureaucratic arrangements in China’s major cities, where the line between areal and functional governance has grown increasingly blurred and new types of territorial power relations have emerged in recent decades. This paper uses fine-grained data on the districts and development zones of Nanjing, Xi’an, and Hangzhou and these urban sub-units’ leaders to explore the changing relationship between areal and functional governance practices. By examining the changing administrative geography of cities and tracking patterns in the appointment and mobility patterns of hundreds of urban district and functional zone leaders, the paper shows how areal and functional governance are in some cases separated, in some cases overlapping, and in other cases fully fused, with varying consequences. This analysis highlights the stark variation in territorial forms and governance practices in Chinese cities, and calls for a rethinking of broader conceptual categories.

Author

• Kyle Alan Jaros, University of Notre Dame