Jin, Y. and Shin, H.B. (2025) Revisiting urban governance in China: The manifestation of entrepreneurial neo-managerialism in shantytown redevelopment in Luzhou. Urban Studies 62(10): 2136 – 2153
Over the past few decades, much of the discussion around China’s urban transformation has focused on the entrepreneurial nature of local governments—those acting like business agents, aggressively pursuing land development, investment attraction, and city branding. While this remains important, we argue that such a lens is no longer sufficient to understand the complexities of today’s urban governance in China.
In a newly published article co-authored with Yi Jin in Urban Studies, we put forward the concept of entrepreneurial neo-managerialism to describe a shifting mode of governance where the state’s managerial and redistributive functions are resurging, without displacing its entrepreneurial aspirations. Drawing on in-depth fieldwork in Luzhou, Sichuan Province, we examine how local bureaucracies mediate state redistribution policies while maintaining their role in land-based capital accumulation.
For the full paper: https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980241304344
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