China's Campaign to Build a New Socialist Countryside: Village Modernization, Peasant Councils, and the Ganzhou Model of Rural Development

Abstract

Since the mid-2000s, the Chinese government has promoted village modernization under the banner of “building a new socialist countryside.” To explain the origins and outcomes of this policy, this article examines the case of Ganzhou city in Jiangxi province. Ganzhou became a national model for rural development known for involving organizations called peasant councils in policy implementation. The study found that despite an initial emphasis on rural participation and moderate change, the new socialist countryside evolved into a top-down campaign to demolish and reconstruct villages. Three factors shaped this process: the strength of bureaucratic mobilization, the weakness of rural organizations, and shifting national policy priorities. After obtaining model status, Ganzhou's rural policy became more ambitious and politicized, leaving little space for participation. This insight suggests there are both benefits and costs to China's policy process. Despite the advantages of policy innovation, scaling up local experiments may actually undermine their success.

Authoritarianism as a Research Constraint: Political Scientists in China*

“…First, the study of local politics and state‐society relations has been overrepresented at the expense of analyses of central government politics and institutions . Questions that became the center of epistemic attention, among several others, explored among other themes, the role of local governments in China's economic and infrastructural development (Oi, ; Ong, ; Looney, ; Montinola et al., ; Shirk, ), economic liberalization and the rise of predatory local states (Ong, ; Pei, ), the characteristics and effects of village elections (Landry et al., ; Li, ; O'Brien, ; O'Brien and Han, ), residents’ committees in urban areas (Read, , ), the cadre evaluation system and its impact on local governance (Edin, ; Kinkel and Hurst, ; Whiting, ), the impact of elite factions on local governance (Hillman, ), and variance in local government responses to contention and collective protests (Cai, , ; Hurst, ), as well as actors involved in and forms of local government repression (Deng and O'Brien, ; O'Brien and Deng, ) . Because most analyses have studied local‐level politics, we still know little about how central and provincial government institutions work and the relations of power among actors between and within those institutions.…”

Resourcing remoteness and the ‘post‐alteric’ imaginary in China

“…This policy was reconfigured in 2000 as the ‘Open up the West’ ( Xibu Dakaifa ) campaign to develop interior economies largely excluded from the spectacular marketisation and enrichment of the coastal regions. Guizhou has also been targeted by the programme to Build a New Socialist Countryside ( Jianshe Shehuizhuyi Xin Nongcun ) which was launched in 2006 (Perry ; Looney ).…”

“…Many projects have also implemented rural ‘beautification’. Looney (), for instance, documented the preference on the part of local leaders for aesthetic uniformity in village housing designs toward rustic visual appeal. Steinmüller (: 202) found investments in village improvement concentrated on only those villages visible from paved roads.…”

Leninism and Local Interests: How Cities in China Benefit from Concurrent Leadership Appointments

“…A Guangdong native, Pan had served in Jiangxi's provincial establishment for just under 2 years when he was appointed as Ganzhou's leader. Under Pan, Ganzhou reoriented its development approach to become a national frontrunner in BSocialist New Countryside Construction.^As detailed by Looney (2012Looney ( , 2015, this initiative was identified with Pan himself, who already had a reputation as a rural development advocate. Pan spearheaded a large-scale campaign to rebuild rural settlements and restructure rural governance, drawing attention from national-level leaders and media in the process.…”