No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Multi-dimensional superposition: Rural collaborative governance in Liushe Village, Suzhou City
Abstract
Rural governance has become a hot topic alongside rapid urbanization, especially in several Global South countries. Under China's new-type urbanization, rural and suburban space in the Yangtze River Delta has entered the metropolitan system. The rural-urban boundary has been blurred, reflecting the characteristics of planetary urbanization. Rural governance in the metropolitan fringe areas exhibits characteristics different from that in the traditional rural areas. Taking Liushe Village of Suzhou as a typical case, this study linked planetary urbanization to collaborative governance theory and constructed a multi-dimensional conceptual framework to explore the process, characteristics, and mechanism of its rural governance based on qualitative research methods. Liushe has undergone three stages under rapid urbanization: traditional agriculture, ecological conservation, and culture-tourism integration, which have led to the continuous transformation of the rural governance mode. Local governments, creative entrepreneurs, and the village collective are the three key subjects in formulating collective actions. The collaborative governance of Liushe reflects the multi-dimensional superposition of institutional design, social capital, and collective attributes. The case study provides a reference for exploring China's new rural governance mode. The rural spatial reconstruction of Liushe Village partly supports the view of planetary urbanization, whereas its multiple logics under unique institutional conditions expand the research framework of collaborative governance.
... The rural world, especially in the global north, is experiencing a diverse process of socio-environmental crisis linked to a generalised population decline (del Olmo-García et al., 2023;Gómez Valenzuela and Holl, 2023;Rodríguez-Rodríguez and Larrubia Vargas, 2022). The arrival of newcomers is presented as a strategy to address this crisis (Michele et al., 2023;Zhang et al., 2022). In many rural contexts, the arrival of newcomers has been seen to create significant demographic improvements and economic activation Zhou et al., 2017). ...
... The rural crisis is not limited exclusively to demographic and economic erosion; it also implies the weakening of traditional activities, environmental deterioration and the loss of social and identity bonds (Terrado, 2010). As a result, to understand the role of newcomers in the face of rural crisis, we must study in depth what they contribute to the socio-ecosystem beyond mere demographics (Dinis et al., 2019;Wu et al., 2022;Granovetter, 1985;Zhang et al., 2022;Komppula, 2014). ...
... The arrival of newcomers from urban environments is presented as a panacea to tackle the rural crisis (Escribano, 2022;Michele et al., 2023;Zhang et al., 2022) understood in a reductionist way as an eminently demographic phenomenon. Furthermore, if one is starting from a broader view of the crisis, urban immigration not only improves population censuses and public revenues Zhou et al., 2017), but brings to the rural world cultural and economic capital which, if properly exploited, can contribute to its revitalisation (Díaz-Rocca and Zielinski, 2022;. ...
... The basic link in the national sound and modernized local government governance system is grassroots governance, which is a complex systematic project. As a special region in China's administrative division, the governance of social and public affairs is often intertwined with factors such as ethnicity and religion, ecological environment, and economic development, resulting in obvious governance dilemmas for grassroots governance in agricultural and pastoral areas [1][2][3]. At present, China has put the implementation of a rural revitalization strategy on the national development agenda, which brings opportunities and challenges to grass-roots governance in agricultural and pastoral areas. ...
... Let ( ) 12 , = , where 1 is a pr matrix corresponding to eigenvalue 12 Ridge parameter has a smaller deviation than ˆ( ) k . ...
With the in-depth implementation of the rural revitalization strategy, it is of great significance to study the supervision and governance mechanism of national audit in the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy. As the main components with smaller contribution rates will be discarded when evaluating and analyzing the influencing factors of rural revitalization, it may affect the analytical judgment of the actual problem. Therefore, based on stepwise regression, this paper adopts ridge regression to correct multicollinearity, with the help of the ridge trace diagram to judge the correlation between independent variables intuitively and quickly, and through the ridge calculation as much as possible to retain the independent variables that have a greater impact on rural revitalization. The principal component-ridge regression model is proposed because it takes into account the advantages and disadvantages of various regression methods. To solve the problem of unstable regression coefficients caused by multiple covariances, to analyze the important influencing factors of state auditing on rural revitalization according to the regression coefficients, and to establish the governance optimization path of state auditing to promote rural revitalization. According to the regression results, the government audit variable has a significance level of 1%. The comprehensive governance function of government audit has a regression coefficient of -0.038 that shows significant and negative results at a 1% confidence level. The performance scores of rural sustainability as well as financial dimensions are in the range of 0.8 to 1, which is a good level.
... The third part of the framework investigates expressed commitment [14], institutional commitment and budgetary commitment. Finally, the fourth part provides elements of subcontracting of smart city initiatives (vendor responsibilities, resource dependency, profit, and cost distribution, responsibility for user demand, quality of service, user satisfaction, shared decision-making, accountability, equity, conflict resolution framework, and multi-party incentive mechanism) [43,53,55]. ...
... This study highlights the following ones: 1) resource dependency, 2) ineffective multi-party incentives, 3) lack of conflict resolution mechanism, and 4) no shared decision-making. Although a few studies highlight the topic of resource infrastructure [55] [19] this study shows how relevant it is to understanding resource dependency as a critical aspect when executing smart city initiatives. Moreover, one of the main perils of large-scale smart city projects is ineffective multi-party incentives directed to the stakeholders to support collaborative governance, which facilitates smart city execution [49]. ...
The concept of a smart city holds a great promise for prosperity for its residents by delivering them public value that satisfies their needs. But the reality falls far from the vision, as the implementation of ambitious goals in the form of smart city projects in subcontracting mode occurs in complicated socio-techno-political settings, which often end up in failure. Institutional facets of political commitment and its impact on public value creation are not fully recognized. To close this gap, this study adopts the approach of political commitment to identify and analyze those elements that could hinder the provision of public value in a smart city project. To do so, we perform a qualitative analysis of four smart city initiatives' failures in different countries. The findings reveal that particular elements associated with political commitment in subcontracting projects impact public value provision in smart city initiatives. Particularly, the key role of the continuation of political commitment in its institutionalization phase leads to a loss of public value within strategic, political, and financial spheres. Our study contributes to better recognition of institutional settings that contribute to smart city initiatives’ failure.
... Rural governance is an interactive process in which multiple actors negotiate and collaborate to achieve public interest when making decisions about public policy or public goods in rural areas (Sun et al., 2021). Through institutional, economic, and cultural mechanisms, rural governance can play an effective role in risk aversion, poverty alleviation , environmental sustainability, social innovation, and community empowerment (Sun et al., 2021;Palmer et al., 2022;Zhang et al., 2022). During the last decade, rural governance has received a great deal of attention from both the government and academia . ...
Despite previous studies on the interconnectedness of livelihood risks and human well-being, limited emphasis has been placed on the influence of geographic accessibility and rural governance on the well-being of rural households. Furthermore, the interplay between geographic accessibility, rural governance, and livelihood risk remains inadequately explored. Based on 522 household samples collected in the Dabie Moun-and ordinary least squares regression, this study examines the influence of multiple risks on the subjective well-being of rural households by investigating the moderating roles played by geographic accessibility and rural governance. The results show that (1) multi-risk factors have a significant negative effect on rural households' well-being (β=−0.219, p<0.01); (2) geographic accessibility has a weak positive effect on rural households' well-being (β=0.064, p<0.1) compared to rural governance, which plays a larger positive role (β=0.228, p<0.01); and (3) geographic accessibility has a significant moderating on the relationship between multiple risks and rural households' well-being, decreasing adverse impact of multiple risks on households' well-being. Our findings suggest that geographic accessibility and rural governance have positive implications for enhancing well-being of rural households. The findings provide policy insight into mitigating livelihood risks and their negative impacts on household well-being in mountainous regions worldwide .
... Relying on the differences in the rural spatial environment, consultative participation as a social practice can effectively contribute to the improvement of rural governance capacity and governance efficiency. Literature [8] takes Suzhou Liushe Village as the research object and constructs a multi-dimensional rural governance model relying on the theory of collaborative governance and planetary urbanization. The collaborative governance capacity of Liushe Village at different stages is differentiated, and the local government, entrepreneurs, and village collectives work together to carry out rural governance, reflecting the multi-dimensional superposition of institutional design, social capital, and collective attributes, which provides a reference for collaborative rural governance. ...
This study employs spatial theory to investigate rural social governance, revealing how it influences the spatial layout of rural settlements. By utilizing GIS spatial analysis and spatial autocorrelation methods, we systematically categorize and organize rural territorial spaces, developing an optimal regional planning system for rural areas. Through spatial econometric analysis, we examine selected villages’ comprehensive governance levels and ecological governance efficiency. Our evaluation focuses on five key areas: economic development, public services, social order, environmental livability, and overall governance effectiveness. Findings indicate a significant annual growth in the villages’ overall development level by 14.6%, with rural governance effectiveness improving from 0.819 to 0.859 between 2012 and now. Moreover, disparities in governance effectiveness within these areas are narrowing. This research broadens the scope of rural governance studies through a spatial lens, offering valuable insights and benchmarks for future inquiries.
... Los gobiernos locales, los empresarios creativos y el colectivo del pueblo son los tres sujetos clave en la formulación de acciones colectivas. La gobernanza colaborativa refleja la superposición multidimensional del diseño institucional, el capital social y los atributos colectivos (Zhang et al., 2022;Xu et al., 2022;Pies y Schultz, 2023). De otra manera, si aumentara el acceso al microcrédito da como resultado mejores resultados educativos para la educación de los niños y niñas enáreas rurales, donde los padres toman una decisióń optima sobre el nivel de inversión en educación de sus hijos, resolviendo el problema de maximización (Phan et al., 2023), siendo importante conocer sobre la gobernanza rural y el empoderamiento de las mujeres, atendiendo las diferentes necesidades de la población mediante un gobierno transparente que trabaje a favor de las comunidades rurales con bajos ingresos en la parte de la economía. ...
La investigación enfoca la participación de la mujer del mundo rural, donde su vida diaria se genera en el entorno de su familia y su comunidad, gesta que logra mediante su capacidad y poder de decisión para lograr el empoderamiento en la sociedad. Partiendo de la premisa de construir el desarrollo local con esfuerzo, siendo éstos basados en la actividad agrícola y ganadera, tiene que enfrentar necesidades ante el desafío por el elevado costo de vida, sin que éstas cuenten con estudios culminados y en su gran mayoría son analfabetos que no asistieron a un centro educativo en ningún momento de su vida. Para lo cual, se aborda como objetivo conocer la participación de las mujeres rurales en la gobernanza de la gesta de su comunidad en Perú. Trabajo desarrollado mediante el enfoque cualitativo, de tipo básica, no experimental, mediante el paradigma interpretativo, haciendo uso del método fenomenológico y hermenéutico, para trabajar mediante la técnica de entrevista y como instrumento la guía de entrevista estructurada, orientando a las participantes mujeres rurales de las zonas de influencia de un distrito de la región Cajamarca, donde se gestionó nueve (9) preguntas a cuatro (4) participantes mujeres representantes y líderes de su comunidad como son: (una representante del Fondo de Cooperación para el Desarrollo Social – FONCODES perteneciente al Estado peruano; una representante de la “Cooperativa Porcón” dedicada a trabajar en equidad de género y religiosidad, una investigadora del Instituto Nacional de Innovación Agraria-INIA, perteneciente al sector agropecuario, y finalmente una ciudadana líder de la comunidad, que trabaja en bien de la sociedad) entrevista que duró entre 40 a 60 minutos. Existe deficiencia en la participación de mujeres en las zonas rurales en cuanto a la gobernanza, poco interés en la gestión de la comunidad, participación activa de programas asistenciales emitidos por el gobierno central, así como, labores diarias de campo en la siembra, cosecha, venta de sus productos a pequeña escala, sumado a ello, la ganadería con la producción de derivados lácteos como: queso, mantequilla, manjar, mermeladas, yogur, entre otros, basados en la conservación de su cultura y ancestros que permanecen en el legado dejado por sus antepasados, influenciando en su vida comunal y de sus hijos, en tal sentido de lograr el empoderamiento en la empleabilidad laboral al culminar sus estudios. Por lo que se concluye, las mujeres rurales consideran que trabajar de forma conjunta con sus familias logran avanzar y evitar actos negativos en la sociedad, sin importar la gestión como posibles candidatas o autoridades en su ámbito.
... The integration of agriculture and tourism is to utilize the locational and agricultural advantages of rural areas to develop agricultural tourism, which raising the agricultural ecoefficiency and farmers' income (Zhu et al., 2021;Wang et al., 2022b). While the integration of culture and tourism exploits cultural resources and functions of rural areas and industrializes the cultural tourism, it helps to synchronize the cultural inheritance and industrial development in rural areas (Jovicic, 2016;Zhang et al., 2022d). Ecological tourism utilizes and commodifies natural resources and ecological products of rural areas to transform the rural industrial structure, which is an effective way to balance the economic development and ecological protection in rural areas (Liu et al., 2013). ...
Realizing the ecological value of rural areas through industrial development is an indispensable pathway of global rural sustainable development. However, it is still unclear how to choose efficient rural industrial development modes (RIDMs) for ecological value realization in rural areas due to the lack of quantitative measures. In this study, a quantitative measurement is proposed to identify the RIDMs and evaluate their capability of realizing the ecological value in 2, 090 counties of China. The results show that the modernization of planting industry and integration of primary, secondary, and tertiary industries are the two most prevalent RIDMs in rural China, while the integration of agriculture and tourism and ecological tourism are the two most ecologically efficient RIDMs. Besides, the ecological value of rural China (63.11 trillion yuan) is much higher than its economic value produced (50.43 trillion yuan) in 2020, and their spatial distributions are mismatched. The western region of rural China has an enormous ecological value but create a low economic output. Our findings highlight the importance of realizing the vast ecological value of rural areas through effective RIDMs to promote the rural sustainable development in China and other developing countries.
... With the popularization of the Internet and related technologies, the modernization of rural governance has become an important strategy to promote sustainable rural development [1]. In order to effectively assess the level of rural governance modernization, it is crucial to construct a reasonable evaluation index system [2][3][4]. ...
In the context of the information age, accelerating the modernization of rural governance has become the focus of social attention. This paper adopts the coupled coordination degree model. It applies the coefficient of variation method to standardize the evaluation index data, thus establishing a spatial measurement model for in-depth analysis of rural governance. This paper constructs a modernization evaluation index model, including five main evaluation indexes, including industrial modernization, ecological excellence, cultural modernization, effective governance, and affluent life, to form a comprehensive rural governance modernization evaluation system. Hunan Province in China is the case study, and this study explores its rural governance modernization level in detail. The results show that the development level of rural governance modernization in Hunan Province is higher than the average value of the composite index of the six central provinces, which is 0.4701. In developing rural governance modernization indicators, the indicators generally show an upward trend, with an increase of 8.7%, 5.66%, 16.43%, 4.79%, and 13.84%, respectively. However, the indicators of effective governance and cultural modernization have become the main obstacles to the modernization of rural governance in Hunan Province, with the combined obstacle degree of these two indicators reaching 67.92%. This study not only provides a practical evaluation tool and method for rural governance modernization, but also provides specific data support and policy recommendations for developing rural governance modernization in Hunan Province, which helps to promote the process of modernizing regional rural governance.
... Analyzing the relationship between rural and urban areas on the outskirts of metropolitan areas can provide a reference for rural development and rural revitalization in the context of rapid urbanization [75]. This study contributes to a more efficient allocation of resources. ...
In the context of rural revitalization strategies and humans’ increasing leisure pursuits, rural tourism has begun to act as a new development path of rural economic growth and industrial transformation. This phenomenon generally occurs in rural areas around metropolitan areas, manifesting as the transformation or reconstruction of rural spaces. As a result, many new types of tertiary industry spaces utilizing rural land for leisure activities have emerged. We analyze the connotations of rural spatial and industrial transformation from the perspective of spatial production and innovatively propose that the transformed space is an ecological product, which includes three types in practice: industrial space, consumption space, and residential space. This study facilitates urban–rural integration and common prosperity. Given the lack of analysis of rural ecological products, especially rural spatial ecological products (e.g., rural B&Bs and other tertiary industry spaces), this study aims to explore the value expression and driving factors of rural spatial ecological products based on geo-visual (spatially visualizing) analytical tools looking at 10361 B&Bs in Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces of China as typical examples. Our results show that (1) the value of rural spatial ecological products is reflected in the price that urban consumers are willing to pay for rural natural landscapes, which constitutes an ecological premium; and (2) the prices of rural spatial ecological products are strikingly different at multiple spatial scales, and this difference is related to the local ecological resources. This study provides insights into the rational allocation of the limited resources required for rural construction, which helps optimize the spatial planning of rural ecotourism and enhance the gametogenous development momentum of rural areas. At the same time, this study theoretically expands the research results of cultural ecosystem services.
... The construction of the rule of law for rural revitalization is one of the important contents of the rural revitalization strategy [4]. Rural revitalization of the rule of law is a solid guarantee to ensure social stability in the countryside, is an inevitable requirement for the state to promote the rule of law in a comprehensive manner, and is also an important path to cope with the change of the main contradictions of society in the new era [5][6]. ...
With the goal of exploring the efficiency of the rule of law in rural revitalization, this paper analyzes the governance outcomes of the rule of law in rural revitalization from three aspects: the value of the times, the basic framework, and the mechanism of realization. The process of rural rule of law institutional change can be constructed by analyzing the mechanism characteristics of institutional change. The super-efficient SBM model is constructed based on the DEA method, and the modernization of rural governance capacity is solved by combining the governance theory, so as to achieve the effect of measuring the efficiency of rural revitalization of the rule of law. Improve the accuracy of efficiency measurement by adding the Malmquist index. The efficiency test model for rural revitalization rule of law is constructed to test the effects of rural rule of law. The results show that the epochal value of the rule of law in rural revitalization is mainly reflected in the scientific, digital and normative aspects, and the digital value embodied in the highest proportion of 0.8137, followed by normative, the value embodied in the degree of 0.7908. The content of ecological revitalization rapidly increases from 4 to 70 after the 5th cycle, and the degree of influence peaks in the 12th cycle. The research in this paper provides a new governance direction for the rule of law in rural revitalization, which can further improve the rule of law system in rural areas.
... Furthermore, rural governance and rural living directly impact farmers' input capacity. By constructing rational interest-sharing mechanisms, Zhang et al. [22] discovered that rural governance enhances farmers' collective action capacity and achieves income growth and material capital accumulation in rural areas. Zhou et al. [23] found that an improved rural governance system, through providing basic public services and enhanced rural welfare, partially reconstructs rural social capital, reinforces incentives for farmers' education investment, and influences the accumulation of rural human capital. ...
Promoting rural entrepreneurship is an important approach to achieving rural revitalization, accelerating the construction of a new development pattern, and enhancing the well-being of farmers. Based on the County Digital Rural Index (CDRI) and the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS), we empirically examine the impact and role of digital rural construction (DRC) on rural household entrepreneurship. Our findings are as follows: (1) DRC plays a vital role in facilitating entrepreneurial behaviors (EB) and entrepreneurial performance (EP) among rural households. (2) DRC indirectly fosters rural household entrepreneurship by facilitating resource acquisition and opportunity identification. (3) Our heterogeneity analysis reveals that DRC’s promotion effect is stronger among local entrepreneurs and individuals with risk-averse tendencies. Additionally, DRC has a more pronounced effect in stimulating EB within lower-income families, while its impact on EP shows the opposite trend. Furthermore, DRC’s influence on rural household entrepreneurship is particularly significant in regions with more advanced digital rural development. (4) Additionally, we observe a significant positive impact of the four dimensions of DRC on rural household entrepreneurship, further affirming the role of DRC in driving rural household entrepreneurship. In the digital economy era, this study provides empirical evidence to promote the integration of digital technology and rural entrepreneurship, offering valuable insights for advancement in this domain.
... In the context of the unique institutional conditions in rural China, special attention is paid to the interests and power relations of village organizations, villagers, and floating populations (including floating elites), as well as local governments in rural production and reproduction spaces [77]. Rural stakeholders build trust through dialogues, further, form a consensus commitment to the direction of rural development, and organize joint actions on the basis of existing institutional arrangements, village resources, and knowledge [78]. ...
The bourgeoning of e-commerce in the context of the information era has accelerated the urbanization trend by broaching a new horizon of economic and industrial boosters for rural places, epitomized by a great number of “Taobao Villages” in China. This paper has two objectives: (1) explore the process and mechanism of digitalization enabling rural in-situ urbanization represented by e-commerce; (2) nuance the specific case evidence of Daiji Town, where digitalization enabled in-situ urbanization recently. We build up a theoretical framework for digitalization-enabled in-situ urbanization from the juxtaposition of four interlinked elements: industry, talent, rural governance, and land use. It then analyzed the details and evidence of digitalization enabling rural in-situ urbanization through the case study of Daiji Town. The main conclusions of this paper are as follows: First, digitalization plugs rural areas into production and consumption networks in wider contexts, promoting the transformation and prosperity of rural economies. Secondly, the reverse migration of young generations to rural areas becomes the key to rural in-situ urbanization. Thirdly, digitization materializes the urbanization of rural spaces. Finally, digitalization enables the rural transformation and improvement of urban-rural relations in the Global South, which needs to be further explored.
... Bantuan program air bersih yang diberikan oleh PT Incasi Raya kepada Nagari Tluk Amplu Inderapura, dalam melakukan pelaksanannya melibatkan seluruh stakeholder yaitu dari pihak swasta, pemerintah nagari, puskesmas dan masyarakat juga ikut terlibat didalamnya. Pelaksanaan yang dilakukan diantaranya pemeriksaan kondisi air bersih rumah warga, merencanakan pembangunan program air bersih, menyiapkan dan melaksanakan program air bersih, mengoperasikan program air bersih dan memelihara dan menjaga sarana program air bersih yang telah dibangun (Bradley et al., 2022;Panday, 2018;Zhang et al., 2022). ...
Kajian ini dilakukan untuk membahas terkait faktor pendukung dan penghambat dalam pelaksanaan program air bersih di Nagari Tluk Amplu Inderapura Kecamatan Pancung Soal. Penelitian ini disusun dengan pendekatan kualitatif dan menggunakan metode deskriptif. Dan informan penelitian menggunakan teknik Purposive Sampling. Hasil penelitian ini adalah faktor pendukung dan penghambat Collaborative Governance dalam pelaksanaan program air bersih di Nagari Tluk Amplu Inderapura. Temuan dalam penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa faktor pendukung pelaksanaannya adalah kualitas SDM dalam pelaksanaan, ketersediaan dana pelaksanaan, partsipasi masyarakat setempat dan proses transparansi dalam berkolaborasi. Sedangkan faktor penghambatnya adalah kurangnya kesadaran masyarakat dan masih terdapat ego sektoral pada masing-masing stakeholder.
... Although a systemic design may be capable of addressing the challenges of rural sustainability-which plague complex sociotechnical systems-there is a lack of evidence in past studies on how this can be achieved. The various and strikingly different actors that have evolved in rural areas challenge practitioners engaged in improving rural systems, as each actor comes with their resources, values, and interests [39]. Therefore, practitioners engaged in rural sustainability must not only interpret the complex situation and develop intervention solutions [40] but also reconcile relationships between multiple stakeholders, foster cross-sectoral dialogue, and empower diverse actors [41]. ...
Rural sustainability has emerged as a ‘wicked problem’ for practitioners within and outside design. Many efforts that adopted a systematic approach since the 1980s paved the road for addressing such a systemic problem. Moreover, stakeholders from the systemic design field have made significant strides by developing a systemic approach to rural systems since 2012 and implementing numerous localised design practices globally. Despite these efforts, the essence of systemic design for sustainable rural development remains relatively unclear because of its infancy. Therefore, this study tries to answer the question of “how does systemic design facilitate the sustainability transition of rural communities” by conducting field visits to two typical systemic design projects: Future Village Lab in rural China (Tieniu Village) and Systemic Design Lab in Italy (Ostana). Thereafter, drawing on insights from organisational management studies, this study pioneers a novel theoretical framework called ‘Situation-Cognition-Action’ to compare and analyse these two cases. The results highlight the role of systemic design in contributing to rural sustainability by enhancing the understanding of complex situations, fostering cognitive capacity, and creating a solution ecosystem for collaborative action. Finally, it elucidates how systemic design addresses three crucial trade-offs and effectively promotes rural sustainability in various rural contexts.
... Second, we supplement this with research content. Although a few studies have considered power supervision when studying the factors affecting public governance [24][25][26], and some scholars have proposed that a dual leadership system with "cover" can alleviate the distortion of incentives brought about by the subjective supervision mechanism through studying the assessment and supervision of China's township governments, these studies have not paid attention to the particularity of acquaintance societies in rural areas. "Cover-up" supervision and assessment is not applicable in rural society, as it ignores the auxiliary role played by informal organizations in governance [27]. ...
This paper mainly studies the effect of village-level power supervision reform on the rural supply of public goods. In this paper, the panel data of 100 villages in five provinces of China from 2005 to 2019 are used to identify and analyze the impact of the supervision policy on the supply of rural public goods. The study adopted PSM-DID as the identification strategy to alleviate the endogenous problem of the model; it found that the supervision policy significantly improved the supply of public goods in villages, and increased the satisfaction of villagers with the village economic base and public social services. There is regional heterogeneity in the improvement effect of policy on public goods supply, which mainly reflects the regions with weak economic development. This policy mainly promotes the optimization of public goods supply by strengthening villagers’ public participation, and promoting the improvement of the current situation of public goods by restraining village cadres’ duty behaviors. It is also found that the coupling of clan power and village formal authority can inhibit the positive effects brought by the policy, and only in areas with strong clan power can the negative effects be mitigated. Moreover, there is an alternative relationship between the assessment pressure of village cadres and the supervision force sent to the countryside, which will form a situation of excessive supervision and inhibit the optimization of village public goods. The conclusion of this paper provides empirical support for the view that “top-down external institutional supervision and bottom-up internal democratic supervision should be effectively integrated” in the theory of village power supervision.
... The expansion of food production exacerbates the risk of factor mismatch, which is accentuated by the governance environment that pursues food production excessively. Predictably, similar to Zhang's [74], the inter-regional public sector's synergistic governance improves due to the rational flow of agricultural production factors. By improving the internal resilience and external adaptability of agricultural development system, the surrounding cities will improve agricultural production efficiency and scale effect [38]. ...
Previous studies focused on the status and driving factors of non-grain cultivated land (NGCL), but lacked research on the impact mechanism of NGCL on sustainable agricultural development from the perspective of farmers’ household livelihoods and agricultural production factor allocation. Therefore, the concept of resilience was introduced. According to official statistics of China from 2010 to 2021, such as the local statistical yearbooks, the impact of NGCL on agricultural development resilience (ADR) in the main grain-producing area of Northeast China was explored based on the threshold effect model and the spatial lag model. The results indicate that: (1) the overall level of NGCI in the study area from 2011 to 2020 show an upward followed by a downward trend; (2) the size of agricultural labor force and average area per labor constrain the impact of NGCI on ADR, and the change can be characterized by negative to positive, increasing and then decreasing respectively, and the former is more constrained than the latter; (3) a negative effect of the NGCI trend on ADR exists without spatial spillover effect. The expansion of food production exacerbates the risk of factor mismatch, which is accentuated by the governance environment that pursues food production excessively. Establishing the NFP governance standards should consider the transformation of farmers’ livelihoods and the optimization of production factor allocation. Constructing a resilient risk management mechanism, promoting moderate scale operation and optimizing agricultural labor scale are specific paths for improving the governance mechanisms of NGCI. This study provides a theoretical reference for the development of policies and governance strategies for NGCI in underdeveloped areas.
With the rapid urbanization process, the space of traditional villages in China is undergoing significant changes. Studying the spatial evolution of traditional villages is significant in promoting rural spatial transformation and realizing rural revitalization and sustainable rural development. Based on the traceability analysis of spatial production theory, this paper constructed an analytical framework for the spatial production evolution of traditional villages, analyzed the spatial evolution process and characteristics of traditional villages by using buffer analysis, spatial syntax, and other research methods, and revealed the characteristics of the spatial production evolution of traditional villages and the driving mechanism. The results show that: (1) The village spatial formation and development follow the village life cycle theory and usually develop from embryonic villages to diversified and integrated villages; (2) The evolution of village spatial production is characterized by the diversity of material space, the sublimation of daily life space, and the integration of social system space and generalization of emotional space; (3) The evolution of village spatial production from backward and poor village to ecologically well-off village is influenced by a combination of factors; (4) The village has formed a spatial structure of “people-land-scape-culture-industry”, realized comprehensive reconstruction and spatial reproduction. The study results reflect the spatial evolution characteristics of traditional villages in mountainous areas in a more comprehensive way, which helps to promote the protection and development of traditional villages in mountainous areas and, to a certain extent, provides a reference for the development of rural revitalization.
Purpose
This research aims to investigate the impact of the collaborative governance mechanism on the implementation of rural governance information systems in developing countries. By integrating institutional logic theory, affordance theory and social identity theory, the authors propose modeling grassroots officials' affordance perception process and exploring the importance of multi-identities’ information technology (IT) goals in affordance perception.
Design/methodology/approach
Through an exploratory case study, the authors identified three affordances of rural governance information systems and investigated the mechanisms influencing the perception of these affordances among grassroots officials. Next, the authors established a research model and collected 490 valid questionnaires from grassroots officials in China and analyzed the data using structural equation modeling (SEM).
Findings
The authors' study challenges previous assumptions by integrating institutional logic, affordance and social identity theories. The authors establish a perceived affordance path for rural governance information systems, recognize substitute effects among technological affordances and extend the theory to explain social factors influencing IT perception. The authors' findings suggest providing technical training for grassroots officials to enhance IT capabilities, and governments should prioritize essential functionalities in rural governance information systems to optimize resources. Training on collaborative governance mechanisms can improve IT affordance perception, enhancing digital platform utilization in governance processes.
Research limitations/implications
The study was conducted mainly in China, and therefore, the findings may not be universal to other developing countries. Researchers are therefore encouraged to test the proposal in locations with different rural cultures.
Practical implications
The paper includes implications for the development of IT perception in rural governance, the development of affordance perception theory and studying the relationship between IT goals and affordance perception.
Originality/value
Overall, this paper addresses the need to understand how grassroots officials perceive IT affordances in rural governance and study the relationship between multi-identities’ goals and affordance perception.
This study aims to explore the feasible and sustainable rural development model in China from the perspective of participants. The paper proposed the concept of ‘the community of rural development’: the actors who participate in rural planning, housing and infrastructure construction, industrial development, environmental improvement and social progress, and analysed its evolutionary process from traditional to modern and social network structure characteristics. On this basis, the study proposed six models of rural development in China and selected six typical cases for detailed analysis. These models include village committee-led, peasant organization-led, township enterprise-led, government-led, external enterprise-led and NGO-led. Based on the methodology of social network analysis, the paper designed a simulated routing to analyse the network evolution characteristics of these models and elaborated four output indicators: clustering coefficient, average path length, density and degree centrality of the core actor. The results showed that the internal-actor-led model is superior to the external-actor-led model due to the close inter-relationships among the participants and the strong influence of the core actor. Finally, the paper proposed building partnerships in the community of rural development that are stable and harmonious over the long term and could promote rural development and sustainable renewal in a comprehensive way.
Rural governance is crucial in the strategy of rural revitalization. While significant progress has been made, challenges persist. Diversified stakeholders pose a key factor affecting effective governance. The emergence of the new country sages group offers a valuable solution to address rural governance difficulties. This study examines their participation in rural governance, aiming to attract their engagement based on local conditions. Research was conducted in rural Sichuan province, utilizing literature review, interviews, and snowball sampling to gather 77 valid data points. Findings indicate that new country sages have diverse backgrounds and a strong willingness to participate, contributing to rural self-governance, rule of law, and virtue. However, their impact is limited in most areas, encountering challenges such as weak interaction with the government, uneven quality of new villagers, and low levels of cooperation. To overcome these obstacles, this study suggests countermeasures including system construction, rural civilization development, and improved supervision and management mechanisms.
The No.1 document of the Central Government of China has been on the theme of "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" for nearly ten years, placing the solution of "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" at the forefront of the Chinese government's work. Located in the Central Plains, Henan Province in China is one of the major agricultural provinces in China and plays an extremely important role in the field of agricultural production in China. This paper uses an empirical approach and the DEA-Malquist model to study the efficiency of rural public financial inputs to rural revitalisation in Henan Province. The results show that due to different levels of regional economic development, the efficiency of rural public finance investment in Henan Province in promoting rural revitalisation varies, and there is a phenomenon of unreasonable allocation of funds. At the same time, the region's agricultural base also has a greater impact on the efficiency of financial investment. Therefore, Henan Province should adjust measures according to the different regional economic levels and agricultural bases to improve the efficiency of the use of fiscal funds.
Following the notion of the entrepreneurial city, this paper examines recent scholarship about China’s urban governance. Despite prevailing marketisation, the role of the state is visible in neighbourhood, cities and city-regions. The state necessarily deals with a fast changing society and deploys market-like instruments to achieve its development objectives. Through multi-scalar governance, the state involves social and market actors but at the same time maintains strategic intervention capacity. China’s contextualised scholarship provides a more nuanced understanding beyond the entrepreneurial city thesis, which is more state-centred.
Gentrification has now unfolded at a planetary scale and has broken down the center-periphery structuring of urban and rural areas. In the context of new-type urbanization and rural revitalization, tourism gentrification has gradually become a new frontier of the rural-urban relations in China. Taking Xizha as a case study, this paper aims to explore the characteristics and mechanisms of tourism gentrification in historic districts through temporal analysis and multi-scalar approaches. Based on recent field visits and semi-structured interviews with administrative staff, enterprise managers, residents, and tourists in the study area, three main arguments are put forward in this paper. First, a phased tourism gentrification process has taken place in Xizha, with significant shifts in lifestyle, industry and investment, physical infrastructure, property rights, and the rent gap. Second, tourism gentrification in Xizha is a multi-subject and multi-scalar consequence of uneven development in China, with power-oriented, capital-driven and class-separated processes as the core mechanisms. Third, Xizha's tourism gentrification is regional and endogenous, with the local government and the rural-urban dual structure being the principal influencing factors. Further discussions are provided to expand the general significance of the case study and to increase the contribution to the planetary gentrification.
Governance has become an important theoretical and practical issue of multi-disciplinary concern. In the context of rapid urbanization and wide rural-urban disparity, rural-urban governance is particularly important for China. Based on the Chinese and international governance theories, the key aspects of governance include: an open system, self-organization, and the interactive relationship between power and rights. Internationally the research frontier focuses on the governance of social-ecological systems, while urban governance has grown significantly, and rural governance has also risen in recent years. The research trend and policy evolution of governance in China indicate that China has undergone a comprehensive transformation from management to governance by top-level design, and rural-urban governance is becoming a key issue. The main path of China's ruralurban governance in the future lies in three aspects. First, it is necessary to shift from power-oriented to rightsoriented governance. Second, equal attention needs to be paid to both ecological environment and social governance instead of focusing only on social, single-dimensional, and urban governance systems, and form a rural-urban co-governance system with the participation of multiple subjects. Third, it should be launched to assist rural and urban vulnerable groups actively. Rural-urban co-governance will become a new growth point for theories, and multi-disciplinary, multi-subject, and multi-department collaboration is much needed.
The reform of collective land ownership in post-socialist contexts offers a useful window into how changes in property rights shape and structure the dynamics of territorial transformation. Focusing on China's rural revitalization campaign, this paper demonstrates how the state, as creator and regulator of land rights and property titles, facilitates landscape change by relaxing regulations over the lease of rural land and creating market institutions that favour land transfers to organized capital, in this case tourism companies and property developers. Far from being a spontaneous process of pure market forces and consumer demand, the state is actively harnessing market forces to achieve land use change and extend planning control over rural land. On the ground, the expanding presence of recreational capital has brought about the remaking of Chinese villages into leisure farms, holiday guesthouses and ecological parks geared towards touristic consumption. The paper calls for further attention to processes of exclusion and displacement that this transformation might engender. By exploring the dynamics of rural gentrification in a post-socialist context, this paper makes the case for the need to pay more attention to the comparative study of property rights and ownership regimes in rural gentrification research, and highlights how the intersection of property rights and state power reveals nuances that underscore the importance of going beyond Western conceptualizations of gentrification.
Rural areas are where many environmental and cultural public goods occur, creating a country landscape. Their agro-ecological infrastructure delivers things people directly value, such as food, fibre and energy, but the market fails when it comes to the valuation of public goods. For this purpose, indirect valuation methods are used, but these encounter many methodological problems. The aim of this study is to create a conceptual framework for the economic rent valuation (ERV) method, which estimates the economic rent resulting from the random endogenous influences of public goods on production factors in rural areas. The ERV method attempts to reduce the biases of the market-based and contingent valuation methods that result from the model misspecification and unrevealed preferences, and advocates for adoption of the variance component model. The article also presents an illustrative application of ERV based on the case of the West Pomeranian region of Poland, which reveals the potential advantages of ERV.
The pattern for utilization of rural space is closely related to rural transformation development (RTD). The problem of rural space utilization is an important manifestation of the uncoordinated relationship between land use patterns and rural development status during a transformation period. Considering the rural space utilization issue, this article seeks to analyze the interaction mechanisms between land use transition (LUT) and rural spatial governance and then build a rural spatial governance analysis framework based on LUT. Also, the paper explores the internal relationship between rural spatial governance and rural vitalization and discusses the research prospective of the interaction. The study found that: (1) Rural space utilization has systemic problems such as limited development space, ill-defined ownership and poor organization, which have become important obstacles for rural development. (2) The uncoordinated relationship between LUT and RTD is an important reason for the dilemma surrounding rural space utilization. (3) The LUT provides a basis for determining the timing of rural spatial governance, specifying spatial governance objectives, and clarifying rural spatial governance methods. (4) The construction of a comprehensive analysis framework of “matter-ownership-organization” of rural space based on the LUT has created conditions for the orderly promotion of rural spatial governance. (5) Rural spatial governance which facilitates the integration of urban-rural development is an important foundation for rural vitalization. (6) Interaction analysis of LUT, RTD and rural spatial governance is conducive to facilitating research on the operational mechanism of rural regional systems and to expanding the research field of rural geography.
A rural revival is needed to counter urbanization across the globe, say Yansui Liu and Yuheng Li.
Rapid and far-reaching development transition has triggered corresponding restructuring in rural China especially since the turn of the new millennium. Recently, there has been an increasing trend emphasizing regional resources in formulating rural development policy and restructuring rural areas. This paper analyzes the rural restructuring in China affected by the allocation and management of critical resources including human resource, land resource and capital, by establishing a theoretical framework of “elements-structure-function” of rural territorial system. It is argued that rural restructuring is a process of optimizing the allocation and management of the material and non-material elements affecting the development of rural areas and accomplishing the structure optimization and the function maximum of rural development system. Due to the constraints from the maintained urban–rural dualism of land ownership and household registration, the rapid rural restructuring under both globalization and the implementation of the national strategies on industrialization, urbanization, informatization and agricultural modernization, the changes of the allocation of critical resources have brought about many problems and challenges for the future development of rural China, such as the nonagriculturalization, non-grain preference and abandonment of farmland use together with the derelict and idle rural housing land, the weakening mainbody of rural development, the unfair urban–rural allocation of capital and its structural imbalance, and so on. Aiming at how to resolve the problems and adapt to the challenges, it is pivotal to restructure the rural development space, rural industry, and rural social organization and management mainbody. Furthermore, it is necessary to restructure the contours of state intervention in rural societies and economies and allocate and manage the critical resources affecting rural development, from the perspectives of integrating urban and rural resources, improving the efficiency of resources utilization, and fully understanding the influences of globalization on rural restructuring in China.
As rural decline sweeps the world and draws public attention, it becomes necessary to consider the relationship between urbanization and rural development. The paper investigates this topic in China for the period 1989–2018. The research results find positive contribution of urbanization to rural economy in the research period but with a decreasing tendency. Compared to less developed areas, rural economy of developed regions has become less dependent on cities and can flourish in a larger context with the support of modern transportation and telecommunication technologies. However, those peripheral rural areas tend to face continuous and large‐scale rural–urban migration which has aggravated rural decline. Rural economic growth helps to decrease rural outmigration and people will stay in their hometown with available job opportunities to raise their families and maintain livelihood. The paper proposes balance‐friendly urbanization structure and diversified rural economy to improve rural resilience to meet the challenge of rural decline.
This book divides the history of China's rural-urban relations into three stages: antagonism, integration and re-antagonism, and demonstrates that the two coupled variables i.e., policy-culture and coast-trade are the most crucial to urbanization and rural-urban governance in China from ancient times till now. From the perspective of a combination of history and geography, this book puts forward a new theory which is mainly based on Adam Smith's theory and other theories about rural-urban relationship and reinterprets the process and driving forces of evolutionary history of rural-urban relationship over 5,000 years in China. It is useful for researchers and scholars specialized in such fields as rural and urban studies, economics, geography, management and planning for reference.
Collaborative governance plays an important role in air pollution prevention (APP). This paper aims to evaluate the policy effects of collaborative governance for APP in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region, analyze the collaborative mechanism from the perspective of institutional collective action (ICA) theory, and discuss its implications for improving the policy effects and regional collaboration. First, the causal relationship between collaborative environmental governance and air pollutant reduction is confirmed using the regression discontinuity design (RDD). However, it is also established that regional APP policies initiated by the Regional Cooperation Office of Yangtze River Delta (RCOYRD) did not have a long-term effect on reducing air pollutants. Second, initiative heterogeneity and administrative hierarchy heterogeneity of policy effects between cities are analyzed. It demonstrates that the mechanism formulated by RCOYRD has very limited impact on the reduction of transaction costs and collaborative risks of collaborative environmental governance. Third, clear division of responsibilities, balanced cost-benefit sharing, and coordinated enforcement between local governments are needed to improve the policy effects of collaborative governance for APP.
Rural space development and value distribution are the material basis for sustainable rural development. Rural development problems in China’s farming areas relate to limited space, unclear ownership, inefficient organization. Rural spatial governance takes material space and the spatial relationship as governance objects, combining the fair distribution of space with the participation of multi-stakeholders in rural development. This paper examines “matter–organization–ownership” governance path for rural areas, analyzing the efficiency of spatial governance, and investigating the “population, land, industry, and urban–rural relationship” transformation mechanism needed for rural development. We selected Xiangbu Village, a typical farming village, for empirical research to verify the internal relationship between spatial governance and rural development. Xiangbu Village has significantly improved its rural collective organization, public service ability, space asset value, and other aspects through multi-scale and multi-means governance paths. In Xiangbu Village, collective power and spatial governance reconstructed the multi-stakeholder structure of the village, transforming the spatial connection from weak to strong and improving the spatial and overall benefit structure. The process of rural spatial governance involving multi-stakeholders has promoted individuals’ land rights claims, the participation of multi-stakeholders, and the will to return to start businesses in Xiangbu Village. The space rights reorganization process of public spatial governance in Xiangbu Village provided the economic, organizational, and material space foundation for industrial development. While spatial governance brings opportunities for village development, it also brings risks. The collective power supervision and restraint mechanisms are imperfect, and problems with the participation and coordination of the ternary forces of government, market, and society still need an urgent solution.
Public–private partnerships have been widely applied in e-government development, contributing to new technologies’ adoption and e-government performance. PPP has also required and driven related managerial and organisational reforms. Progress in practice, however, has yet to be matched by increased research evidence and various research gaps remain. This study identifies and examines four stages of e-government development in China and the role of PPP – outsourcing, service co-delivery, joint management, and collaborative governance – which are linked to developments in digital technology and, more particularly, to changes in local governments’ views about the roles of technology and the contribution the private sector can make. The changing relationship between the public and private sectors in e-government has also led to gradually deepening engagement, more equal relationships and more mature mechanisms for collaboration, as well as better outcomes. At the same time, the partnerships continue to face challenges including distrust, inadequate managerial control, uncertain legal frameworks and less than optimal efficiency. Some of these are likely to relate to China’s unique “socialist market economy” and its political institutional arrangements.
This paper examines the role of the “Bluefin Tuna Cultural Festival” in developing and sustaining regional identities within the context of rural regeneration, sustainability, and the creation of closer relationships between production and consumption in the countryside. It focuses on Donggang, Southern Taiwan, an area with rural development issues, increasing tourism impacts, and contested issues of local identity, sustainability, and an aging society. This paper draws on public discourse and in-depth interviews with key stakeholders in Donggang to understand the conditions required for substantiating authenticity of the gastronomic products and experiences and the promotion of an appealing gastronomic image. This study traces the process of embedding bluefin tuna in Donggang through marketing, branding and provides a preliminary conceptualization of interrelations between gastronomic tourism and community development in East Asia.
The paper draws attention to these particular issues issues: the commodification of local heritage and countryside capital, strategies and challenges of hosting culinary festivals and resolving the issue of return migration.
Rural tourism in China is flourishing, largely credited by the scholars in China to the national government's stimulating policies and emphasis on rural regeneration. Against this backdrop and given the scarce literature on the government as a critical stakeholder in rural tourism, this study examines the roles of Chinese central- and local-level governments in rural tourism development. We analyzed both secondary data sourced from government documents and primary data collected through interviews with local government employees and residents at a rural destination in China. The results indicate that the central government plays a steering role in guiding rural tourism towards desired directions, and the local government plays a serving role by directly managing tourism practices and coordinating with businesses and residents to provide services and solve problems. The synergistic interaction of the central and local governments in China stimulates the rapid development of rural tourism.
In the globalization era, shrinking cities have emerged as a widespread phenomenon and become a new buzzword in regional and urban research discourse. The Pearl River Delta (PRD), one of the most representative areas of rapid urbanization in China, is characterized by export-oriented economy and “exo-urbanization.” Induced by the financial crisis of 2008, new spatial symptoms related to urban shrinkage, such as factory collapses, job losses, and vacant dwellings, were observed in this area. To investigate spatial-temporal characteristics of the crisis-induced shrinkage in the PRD, this paper proposes a theoretical approach to interpret urban growth and shrinkage in combination with economic, population, and land dimensions. Moreover, through an analysis of statistical data and in-depth interviews in the case of Dongguan, three primary influences (i.e., global financial crisis, demographic dividend diminishment, and change in institutional arrangement) on urban shrinkage in town-level cities are evaluated. This study not only contributes to the literature by analyzing the short-term urban shrinkage influenced by sudden economic shock in globalization but also demonstrates the complexity and multiplicity of urban shrinkage that emerged in the rapidly urbanizing area of the Global South.
With the recent trend toward collaborative governance, governmental and nongovernmental actors are actively engaged in the environmental governance in China, forming formal and informal networks in this process. While existing research has mostly examined the formation of either formal or informal networks, few studies have examined the influence of formal networks on the formation of informal networks. This article examines the collaborative environmental governance network in China by studying the relationship between formal networks and informal networks. We conduct the research in the empirical context of local water governance in Dongguan city of Guangdong province, China. With survey data collected from 31 municipal departments, 32 town governments, 9 water-related private business and 5 NGOs, we test the hypothesis with Quadratic Assignment Procedure (QAP) regression analysis. The results indicate that formal network does affect and contribute to the formation of informal network, and actors within the formal network are more likely to build informal relationships in environmental governance.
Rapid urbanization, especially in many developing countries, is accompanied by the decline of rural populations and rural culture. Tangwan village in Shanghai in China is a typical case. Based on the theory of production of space, this article presents spatial production of rural culture from three dimensions: ideological space, superficial space and everyday life space, and analyzes the reasons for the gradual decline of rural culture. The development of rural culture in China is seriously affected by the national and local policies. The formal power of a place which is mainly represented by the administrative level, dominates many cultural changes. With the decline of Tangwan's position to a village in an urbanized Shanghai, its local rural culture is declining. Under the pattern of production of space dominated by power and capital the village is challenged to maintain its rural culture and to develop a new culture. The traditional rural culture cannot be protected, however, the new rural culture has not matured. The lack of everyday life space for village residents to express and develop culture is partly to blame. The culture is the root of the rural development. The lost culture leads to the lost village. Adequate everyday life space is important for rural culture to flourish and though those spaces need careful planning to accommodate and grow local cultural needs.
Land system reform (LSR) helps to protect farmers' rights and interests and national food security. China is a country dominated by agriculture but insufficient arable land resources. The contradiction between man and land is prominent. To alleviate the man-land contradiction, the Chinese government has carried out a series of LSRs, especially in the past half century. Extensive and in-depth studies have been done on the process and stage characteristics of China's LSRs, but the systematic analysis on the necessity, problems and key measures to deepen the land system reform is still insufficient. Based on a systematic review of the history of the evolution of China's LSRs, this study firstly analyzed the key issues and new challenges existing in or arising from China's land system, then put forward the necessity of deepening the reform of land system, and discussed specific measures taken to deepen the reform of land system in China at present and finally pointed out the future LSR’s direction. The results show that China's rural LSR has gone through five stages in general since 1949. The key problems existing or arising from the current land system in China include unclear subject of land property right, serious inefficient utilization of land resources, rapid farmland conversion and conflict between farmers’ interests and land system. The dual land system in urban and rural areas has severely restricted the integration of social and economic development in this country. The Chinese government is actively promoting the reforms of rural agricultural land, collective operating construction land and homestead to further remove the dual institutional barriers that hinder the establishment of an integrated land trading market. The vision is good, but there is still a long way to go for China's LSR. The direction of China's rural LSR is to make the property rights relationship clearer, the farmland rights more complete, the transfer transactions more market-oriented and the property rights’ protection more equal. Deepening the rural LSRs is helpful to improve the efficiency of land resource utilization, safeguard the rights and interests of farmers, promote the coordination of human-land relationship, and inject new vitality and momentum into rural revitalization. Cooperative promotion of land resource capitalization reform and household registration system reform is the key area of land system reform in China in the future.
Since the reform and opening up in China, rapid urbanization has boosted the development of economy and society, but it has also been confronted by tremendous challenges. Multidisciplinary research has focused on the issue of a national new type of urbanization planning, leading to a transformation of China’s urbanization strategy. Further research, however, is needed to explore the theoretical basis for this new approach to urbanization. This paper summarizes the process of development of urbanization in China and describes its specific characteristics, including peri-urbanization, special national conditions, complicated factors, and governance system. China’s urbanization makes a great contribution to urbanization on a world scale. Moreover, the literature on the subject demonstrates the significance of urbanization to the discipline of human and economic geography and the scientific connotations of new urbanization, which is people-oriented, harmonious, inclusive, and sustainable. Against a background of humanism, new urbanization represents a transformation from population urbanization to people-oriented urbanization. There are six crucial scientific issues involved: people-oriented urbanization and equalization of basic public services; urbanization with integrated and coordinated urban and rural development; urbanization in the context of resources and environmental carrying capacity and climate change; diverse regional modes; spatial effect and mechanism; and big data and technical innovation. The paper aims to illustrate the theoretical framework of China’s new urbanization, providing references for both theoretical research and policy formulation.
Rural decline is an inevitable process as human society transforms from the agrarian to the urban-industrial economy, and further on to the knowledge economy. Through an extensive literature review, this paper aims to interpret why some rural areas decline while some others do not. The findings show that it is by the interactions between rural areas and the external environment that rural communities either grow, decline or even vanish. The paper emphasizes the necessity to improve rural communities’ resilient capacity through adjusting their internal components’ function and structure to survive the external changes. In this process, rural livelihood diversification, the creation of market oriented institutions and strong social capital are considered to enhance rural resilience and build up sustaining rural communities. Finally, three conditions for sustainable rural development in the knowledge economy are discussed: 1) development of new economic activities that can respond to potential urban demand; 2) local entrepreneurship that can establish and expand these new activities; and 3) social capital that can support the entrepreneurship in new activities with access to credits, labor, human capital, external markets and external knowledge for learning and innovation.
After decades of scholarship, gentrification as a concept has gone global, spreading to diverse geographic and socio-cultural contexts. Drawing upon discussion and debate about this concept, this paper seeks to explain how local villagers in Dali, in southwest China, have been engaged in bringing about ‘gentrification.’ I refer to gentrification in quotation marks because the process analyzed in this paper is not the same as the one typically written about in most of the gentrification literature, in the sense that some villagers are not displaced victims but ‘assistant gentrifiers’ actively pushing forward ‘gentrification’ in the countryside. This paper argues that, though the gentrification framework enables researchers to investigate the cause, outcome, and everyday character of a similar process in a non-western context, it has to be applied with caution, without overlooking contextual specificities and other processes that are mingled with gentrification. Besides noting the spatiality and temporality of the rural gentrification process, this paper expands the discussion of displacement by recognizing its variegated nature within a household and making it explicit that displacement is more than eviction from original housing and includes sociocultural impacts.
Although China is experiencing rapid urbanization process, village is still the basic socio-economic unit in rural China and could be seen as the cell of the rural system. A profound understanding of the nature of village development has important theoretical and practical values. This study aims to explore what makes better village development in traditional agricultural areas of China based on long-term observation and comparison of typical villages. The main findings suggest that rural elites are crucial actors in the transformational development of relatively successful villages. The success of these villages is based on the integration and coordination of internal and external driving forces, the participation, negotiation and cooperation among key actors, and the formation and development of rural networks with these key actors. These actors, interactions and processes could be theorized as a conceptual model for rural development: the bearing model. This study could help better understand the political ecology of rural development during the transition from urban bias to rural priority.
Regional collaborative development mainly emphasizes the relationship and degree of connection between cities. Linkages among cities are more complex and diversified in the age of globalization, so that regional economic collaborative development has become even more important than ever. Domestic and foreign competition must be dealt with to enhance the comprehensive strengths of urban agglomeration. This study takes the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) as a representative case to analyze and evaluate the economic synergistic development capacities of the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration (YRDUA). Location quotients and industrial structure similarity coefficients show that cities with high levels of economic development provide advantages for secondary and tertiary industries, while cities with relatively low economic development levels provide clearer advantages for primary industries. Regarding the movement of the economic barycenter from 2001 to 2016, the overall directional trend was towards the northwest cities. The strength of economic linkages between cities is closely related to distance, population, and levels of economic development. The degree of economic development directly affects the capacity of collaborative development among cities, which then influences the extent of regional collaborative development.
Today's public managers not only have to function as leaders within their agencies, they must also establish and coordinate multi-organizational networks of other public agencies, private contractors, and the public. This important transformation has been.
Organizations turn to multistakeholder partnerships (MSPs) to meet challenges they cannot handle alone. By tapping diverse stakeholders' resources, MSPs develop the capability to address complex issues and problems, such as health care delivery, poverty, human rights, watershed management, education, sustainability, and innovation. This book provides a comprehensive understanding of MSPs, why they are needed, the challenges partners face in working together, and how to design them effectively. Through the process of collaboration partners combine their differing strengths, vantage points, and expertise to craft innovative responses to pressing societal concerns. The book offers valuable advice for leaders about how to design and scale up effective partnerships and how to address potential obstacles partners may face, such as dealing with the conflicts and power issues likely to arise as partners negotiate with each other. Drawing on three comprehensive cases and countless shorter examples from around the world, the book offers practical advice for organizations embarking on an MSP, as well as theoretical understanding of how partnerships function. Using an institutional theory lens, it explains how partnerships can effect change in institutional fields by reducing turbulence and negotiating a common set of norms and routines to govern partners' future interactions within the field of concern. Topics covered include: the nature of working collaboratively, why partnerships are needed, types of partnerships, guidelines for partnership design, partnerships and field dynamics, how to deal with conflicts among partners, negotiating across power differences, partnerships for sustainability, collaborative governance, working across scale differences, and how partnerships transform fields.
The ageing and declining populations face not only challenges in maintaining local services and economies, many also have the added physical and logistical burden of being in hilly or mountainous areas in developed nations. There is urgent need for strong rural leaders and key people to take leadership roles and facilitate social networking that bolsters communities. We examined inter-community networks, focusing on a rural region of Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. We identified the leaders and key people in the many rural communities in this region, examined these people's characteristics, and comprehensively surveyed them to uncover views on such networks, what limits them, and how they can be enhanced. Among the results, we found a high sense of need ascribed to these networks, yet effective participation was relatively low. To facilitate interaction, communication by means such as in-person meetings and telephone conversation was foremost, but online means such as e-mail and social networking have also proven to be valuable supplements across the distance. We further plotted these communicational means of key individuals and found networks some to be extensive, while others are still limited to the range of geographically close communities.
This paper develops a theoretical model of regional land use transitions based on expanding and deepening the concept and connotations of land use transition. With the socio-economic development, transformations between different land use types during a certain period of time cause the change of the conflicts resulted from regional land use morphology pattern from strong to weak. These transformations will lead to a new balance of regional land use morphology pattern consists of different land use types corresponding to related economic departments, respectively, and will finally realize the qualitative transformation of urban-rural land use system. Then, the mechanism of mutual feedback between land use transition and land management was probed based on a three-fold framework of natural system-economic system-managerial system. Generally, land use transitions are affected by land management via economic measures, land engineering, policy and institution. Land use transitions can also contribute to the adjustment of land management measures via socio-ecological feedback. The authors argue that the formulation of land management policies and institutions needs to take into account the land use transition phase of targeted region, not only current land use transition phase but also its subsequent phase corresponding to regional socio-economic development transformation.
This paper argues that the ‘city’ as a political entity is significant in struggles over the ‘urban’, by identifying two moments of ‘differential urbanization’ in the Middle East. Our study in Iran and Palestine/Israel shows that the vision of the ‘city’ as a legitimizing space for political citizenship is at the heart of conflicting imaginaries: in Iran, ‘cities of revolution’ built through housing the poor around Tehran, and redistributive politics that stand on filling the ‘rural/urban gap’, and in Palestine, the new city of Rawabi as a city of Palestinian independence, where privatized urban development contrasts colonial spatialities with anti-colonial potentials. Thus, the right to the ‘urban’ involves claims for the ‘city’ that go beyond the capitalist logic of urbanization. This theorization points to a troubling gap in the planetary urbanization thesis, which moves from collapsing the ‘urban/non-urban’ divide into ‘concentrated’, extended’ and ‘differential’ urbanization to diminishing the role of distinct sociospatial configurations in claims over the ‘urban’. Our case studies show that examining the reconfiguration of inherited spatialities in the context of particular political regimes is imperative for epistemology of the ‘urban’ in its planetary stage. Urbanization otherwise remains an uninterrupted process towards a non-spatial ‘urban condition’.
Due to the unbalanced and confrontational state-citizen relationship, China's urban redevelopment has been accompanied with continuous violent conflicts, which to a large extent damages the public image of Chinese government in recent years. This article first overviews the governance dilemma underlying China's violent demolition from the perspective of institutional arrangement, and then argues a collaborative approach can be a remedy for the dilemma. After the introduction and definition of collaborative governance, this article demonstrates its application in preventing violent demolition with the Caojiaxiang project in Chengdu as a case. It is found that collaborative governance is advantageous in enhancing the legitimacy of governance, increasing the potential to find effective solutions, and enhancing the trust between government and citizens. Despite the disadvantages of collaborative governance, including limited effect and the dependence on social capital, quality of stakeholders' interaction and leadership, this paper argues the success of Caojiaxiang project may be duplicated given the following institutional requirements are met: 1) an institutional procedure to establish and operate evictees' association in urban redevelopment projects; 2) an effective complaint system for the upper-level government to monitor the malpractice of lower-level government; and 3) an judicial system independent of local governments and legal proceeding over any illegal behavior in demolition.
Phillips and Smith’s attempt to refresh (rural) gentrification theory is successful as they provide a prolific set of epistemological comparative threads and substantiate this position via analysis of the UK, France and the US cases. Nevertheless, in my opinion, academia should go beyond the Western European/North American comfort zone and embrace theoretical and epistemological complexity, the currently extended and variegated planetary space presents.
China's rapid urbanization growth during the past decades which has highly promoted its affluence has induced various challenges for the countryside. The problem of rural decline of quite many villages which are suffering depopulation in turn challenges the urbanization sustainability in China. By way of in-depth historical and literature review, the paper finds distorted urban-rural relationship and the tendency of village decline owing to China's long time urban biased policy. By further investigating China's new-type urbanization strategy, the paper draws concerns about future rural development which is less mentioned in the plan. It calls for ruralization and actions to revitalize the countryside so as to be adapted to China's new-type urbanization plan.
Social service contracting between governments and nonprofit organizations has received increasing popularity in China and has aroused enthusiasm in engaging nonprofit organizations in governance issues. This study argues that service contracting, driven by New Public Management tenets, may unexpectedly evolve toward collaborative governance (CG) by creating and consolidating necessary conditions of CG. Practices in Shanghai present evidence that governments and contracting nonprofits jointly make decisions, enforce regulatory functions, set rules, and improve community governance. The analysis shows that over time contracting may lead to generation of mutual trust, acquisition of governing resources, and consolidation of collaborative accountability. The evolutionary perspective provides not only a contingent way to develop CG in a context of heavy social control but also a theoretical link between New Public Management and New Public Governance. Copyright
This revised and expanded third edition extends Ostrom's analysis to account for the most resent developments in American politics, including those of the Clinton and Bush administrations. © 2008 by The University of Alabama Press. All rights reserved.
The aim of this article is to clarify the nature of the management style most suited to the emergence of networked governance. The paradigms of traditional public administration and new public management sit uncomfortably with networked governance. In contrast, it is argued the public value management paradigm bases its practice in the systems of dialogue and exchange that characterize networked governance. Ultimately, the strength of public value management is seen to rest on its ability to point to a motivational force that does not solely rely on rules or incentives to drive public service practice and reform. People are, it suggests, motivated by their involvement in networks and partnerships, that is, their relationships with others formed in the context of mutual respect and shared learning. Building successful relationships is the key to networked governance and the core objective of the management needed to support it.
Drawing on the author's unrivalled experience and expertise in both research and policy-making, this important new book provides a systematic assessment of the changing nature of local governance in Britain and a conceptual framework for understanding the new governance of localities. The author analyzes in detail what New Labour has been trying to do to local governance and management and assesses how and why it has achieved only a mixed record of change. The book concludes by providing a vision of good local governance and an assessment of future challenges for research and reform
Allusions to the “problem of metropolitan government” are often made in characterizing the difficulties supposed to arise because a metropolitan region is a legal non-entity. From this point of view, the people of a metropolitan region have no general instrumentality of government available to deal directly with the range of problems which they share in common. Rather there is a multiplicity of federal and state governmental agencies, counties, cities, and special districts that govern within a metropolitan region.
This view assumes that the multiplicity of political units in a metropolitan area is essentially a pathological phenomenon. The diagnosis asserts that there are too many governments and not enough government. The symptoms are described as “duplication of functions” and “overlapping jurisdictions.” Autonomous units of government, acting in their own behalf, are considered incapable of resolving the diverse problems of the wider metropolitan community. The political topography of the metropolis is called a “crazy-quilt pattern” and its organization is said to be an “organized chaos.” The prescription is reorganization into larger units—to provide “a general metropolitan framework” for gathering up the various functions of government. A political system with a single dominant center for making decisions is viewed as the ideal model for the organization of metropolitan government. “Gargantua” is one name for it.
The population density of rural areas is generally lower than before due to rapid industrialization. Spatial optimized reconstruction of rural settlements is the key to rural sustainable development. Analyzing the distribution characteristics of rural settlements and their impact has profound implications for rural reconstruction. Several types of spatial distribution of rural settlements, such as clustered, random, and uniform discrete distribution, were found in China with significant regional differences. Rural settlements were denser in the southeastern regions compared to the northwestern regions. In regions such as plains, the spatial distribution of rural settlements was denser and the spatial distribution modes were mainly random and disperse. In regions such as cold alpine areas and desert fringes, the rural settlements density was low and mainly clustered. In the transition zone between hills and mountains, the density of rural settlements was high and the spatial distribution mode was mainly random. Rural settlements distribution was influenced by traditions and the economy, with economic development becoming increasingly influential. Additional factors that affected rural settlements distribution included average distance to main roadway, agricultural machinery, per capita grain production, per capita arable land, population density, elevation, precipitation, etc. Multiple distribution patterns should be used to reconstruct rural spaces in different geographical areas. Typical patterns included radially balanced, central land distribution mode; radially imbalanced distribution mode; multicore central land distribution mode, and corridor balanced and imbalanced distribution modes.