Farmland preservation and watershed management in China: a perspective of local entrepreneurial leadership in the party-state mechanism

Shiuh-Shen Chien

Chapter 7 in Handbook on China’s Urban Environmental Governance, 2023, pp 115-127 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter explains how China politically motivates local entrepreneurial leaders to solve complicated environmental issues within the authoritarian party-state context. Three Chinese characteristics of entrepreneurial localism/urbanism are particularly identified: upward accountability, quantifiable evaluation and vertical mobilization. Careerist local cadres prioritize farmland preservation and river pollution control when these two topics are assigned as ‘one-vote veto’ indicators by their supervisory authorities. In addition, vertical subtracting and vertical coordination are two ways of mobilizing lower-level cadres to accomplish fixed-territory (such as farmland) and trans-boundary (watershed) performance assignments. Monitoring technologies can be used to effectively quantify cadre performance for these indicators, encouraging local leaders to flexibly develop certain tactics to achieve the assigned environmental goals. While there was a short-term success, certain long-term social and political externalities are discussed at the end of the chapter.

Keywords: Asian Studies; Economics and Finance; Environment; Politics and Public Policy Sustainable Development Goals; Urban and Regional Studies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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