Corporations, Governments, and Socioenvironmental Policy in China: China's Water Machine as Assemblage

Michael Webber and Xiao Han

Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 2017, vol. 107, issue 6, 1444-1460

Abstract: The standard approach to China's environmental management, fragmented authoritarianism, assumes the existence of state, corporations, farmers, and consumers. New social actors now populate the Chinese landscape, however. One such actor is the network we call the China water machine; others comprise the networks and coalitions that oppose the China water machine's operations. These actors play out their operations and conflicts within socioenvironmental regions like Yunnan. All three (China water machine, oppositional groups, and socioenvironmental regions) are interpreted as assemblages. After contrasting assemblage and the hydrosocial cycle, the article demonstrates how assemblage theory can guide empirical research, by describing the emergence of the China water machine, its membership, and its effects. This machine involves corporations, universities, international institutions, and arms of the government, tasked with identifying and framing what are water management issues, formulating standardized procedures for tackling those issues, and then constructing solutions. These cooperative activities of government and other actors cannot be identified as “Chinese,” as they partly depend on institutions and corporations domiciled outside China; together they render the standard theory incomplete.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/24694452.2017.1320211 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:raagxx:v:107:y:2017:i:6:p:1444-1460

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/raag21

DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2017.1320211

Access Statistics for this article

Annals of the American Association of Geographers is currently edited by Jennifer Cassidento

More articles in Annals of the American Association of Geographers from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().