Formation of infrastructural power

: study on non-state service delivery system in China's urban communities

Abstract

This is a qualitative study that targets at unveiling the nature behind the construction of infrastructural power (IP) reflected in the process of community-based non-state service delivery as well as in exploring the steering mechanism of state-society interaction in the urban community governance system. A strategic-relational approach (SRA) is adopted with which the intention behind the strategies of the state and non-state sectors in their recursive and reflective interrelations would be depicted. This research argues that the non-state sector offers more than ameliorating of public service delivery. It can be recognized as the political strategy employed by the state to construct and enhance the IP in contemporary China. Reform of public welfare service system can be traced back to 1983. After an initial exploration, a service delivery model that involved the non-governmental groups was consolidated in 1994. Subsequently, the reform of Service-Oriented Government (SOG), officially promulgated in 2005, civil organizations and private enterprises as public service providers system were institutionalised. This indicates a significant retreat of state agencies in public service provision and triggered a nationwide debate on what roles non-state service providers have to play. In this respect, while the established literature concentrates on the administrative side of the reform, for instance, the empowerment of non-state service providers and the partnership of state-society in public service delivery, the political side of such reform is largely under-researched. Empirical study of this research reveals the organizational entwining of the process that suggests the state has still retained its power of controlling the non-state service providers. Despite “ideational rhetoric” at the foreground allows the non-state sectors much freedom in service delivery within the constrain of service contracts and financial regulations; yet “operations at the background” suggest the local state still intervenes in the process to ensure political mission of the state-party is duly incorporated, which involves even activities of local party construction. Empirical work of this research focuses on the sophisticated interplay in the community governance networks, which signifies the frontline state power penetration. Community-based non-state service delivery system in Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Xi’an, which represent the development of IP in China at different stages, will be compared. It is found that, in the public realm which the despotic power (DP) can no longer be effective, the state sectors attach more attention on incorporating the interests of non-state sectors into the goal they can pursue, by cooperation and coordination, which avails to immerse the IP into the grassroots and reduce the fundamental threat to the party-state structure. In penetrating the IP in the grassroots, attention is also paid on the aggregation of administrative and the Party powers, which reflects that the ideology and the impact of the Party can be reinforced by its embeddedness into the local administration in the form of negotiable authority.

Date of Award	15 Jul 2015
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	City University of Hong Kong
Supervisor	Ngai Ming YIP (Supervisor)