Download This PaperBetween Developmental and Clientelist States: Local State-Business Relationship in China
Comparative Politics, 44(2), 2012.
38 Pages Posted: 14 Aug 2011 Last revised: 15 Jun 2018
Date Written: August 12, 2010
Abstract
This paper investigates the changing nature of state-business relations in China based on its recent privatization experience. Drawing on an analytical framework based on statist literature, this study seeks to explain why pervasive governance problem occurred during the privatization of local government-owned firms. The two contributing factors are the state’s declining capacity to regulate the market and its reduced autonomy from the emerging elites. Consequently, local states were transformed from those in which there was “embedded autonomy” to those with a “clientelistic” form. This study questions whether the conventional wisdom that local states have played a positive role in China’s economic development is still valid. It provides a more nuanced understanding of cronyism in the relationship between the Chinese Communist Party and capitalists.
Keywords: Developmental States, Local Governments, State-Business Relation, Privatization, Corruption, China
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