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Formation of Relational Poverty Governance and its Impacts: How Chinese Local Governments Implement Poverty Alleviation Programs

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Abstract

This study considers how the Chinese government’s strategy of relational poverty governance has permitted its gaining control over parts of the country where its authority was fragile. President **’s interest in targeted poverty alleviation has led success of this strategy to become a major concern of local governments. Based on fieldwork undertaken in China during the period 2016–2020, the article shows that state-managed political mobilization and rigid bureaucratic governance strategies are not the only means through which political power is exercised; relational poverty governance is another basis of the exercise of state power in rural communities. Mechanisms whereby three levels of state power—symbolic, bureaucratic, and moral—are executed in relational governance are identified. Through practical operations that include emotional interactions, paired assistance systems, and moral supervision, the state regains control in remote areas and strives to achieve successful governance. The article concludes by discussing the policy effectiveness of relational poverty governance and its implications for rural governance in contemporary China.

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Notes

  1. Here, “Three Wests” refers to the Dingxi and Hexi regions of Gansu Province, and the **haigu region of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.

  2. “Secretaries at five levels assuming leadership” refers to provincial, municipal, county, town, and village party branch secretaries bearing responsibility for poverty alleviation.

  3. The CCP’s revolutionary tradition has included encouraging cadres (esp. those with party membership) to establish PKRs with poor households (jieqiongqin) since the revolutionary years. See, for example, Perry 2002. This method has been well institutionalized and broadly used in the TPA program.

  4. Internal government document of County H, January 22, 2018.

  5. See “Implementation Opinions of the CCP Shaanxi Provincial Committee and People’s Government of Shaanxi on Winning the Three-Year Battle against Poverty,” September 4, 2018.

  6. Internal government document, County H, October 20, 2018.

  7. Internal government document, County H, August 16, 2017.

  8. Interview with Y, a township-level cadre, November 28, 2016.

  9. See, ** J.-P., “Speech at a Symposium on Resolving Prominent Problems in Poverty Alleviation.” Retrieved from Chinanews.com (March 6, 2020): http://www.chinanews.com/gn/2020/03-06/9116635.shtml.

  10. Internal government document, County H, March 28, 2016.

  11. Internal government document, County H, May 13, 2017.

  12. Internal government document, County H, June 5, 2017.

  13. Interview with L, a county-level cadre, August 12, 2020.

  14. Internal government document of County H, June 28, 2017.

  15. Interview with S, a village cadre, July 25, 2017.

  16. The case was cited from “New Folk Customs Construction Materials of Village J, Town X,” Internal Materials of Village J, 2019.

  17. Fieldnote by the authors, County H, August 3, 2019.

  18. Fieldnote by the authors, County A, May 10, 2017.

  19. Here, the suspended (or embedded) regime does not mean that the regime itself is in decline (or not), but refers to the suspension (or embedding) of state power that withdraws from (or penetrates) local communities.

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the National Social Science Foundation of China (No. 21CSH086). We would like to thank the editorial board of Journal of Chinese Political Science for their helpful comments on the earlier version of the article. We are especially grateful for insightful comments from Jack Barbalet, and the two anonymous reviewers. Any remaining errors are ours.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Nan**g University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Jiangsu, China

    Hanze Xu

  2. Zhou Enlai School of Government, Nankai University, Tian**, China

    Mingqiang Xu

  3. School of Government, and Centre of Public Affairs and Local Governance, Nan**g University, Jiangsu, China

    Wei Chen

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  1. Hanze Xu
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Correspondence to Wei Chen.

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Xu, H., Xu, M. & Chen, W. Formation of Relational Poverty Governance and its Impacts: How Chinese Local Governments Implement Poverty Alleviation Programs. J OF CHIN POLIT SCI 27, 295–317 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11366-022-09788-1

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