Geographical Research, Volume. 39, Issue 3, 483(2020)
Regional governance in China has shown the periodic feature, notably under the city regionalism in recent years. Examining the formation of regional governance in China is conducive to probing the China’s city-regionalization as well as the features of institutional architecture oriented integrated development. The dynamic and continuing game process in terms of power configuration has replaced the traditional multi-level governmental system. Based upon a case study of Pearl River Delta intercity railway, this article examines the dynamic evolution of power and financial right relation in the planning, construction, and operation process systemically. The Pearl River Delta intercity railway is a large-scale infrastructure project in which multiple governments are fully involved and actively sought for their interests. Thereby, the primary objective of this article is to explore the dynamics of regional governance restructuring in China through interrogating the role of provincial government and the evolution of provincial-local relation. There are two important findings reported by this article. First, the role of provincial government has been transformed from subcontractor and coordinator to “subcontractor plus contractor” and “coordinator plus developer”. This indicates that the provincial government has operated towards both gatekeeper and competitor. The financial authority is essential to determining this role transformation. Second, the structural administrative subcontract of provincial-local relation has transformed to serval opposed and cooperation waves of continuum. This continuum has been driven by different types of interests and the provincial-local relation constitutes to the stability and structural coherence of regional governance in China. This finding rectifies existing understanding around the regional governance mechanism, that is top-down and bottom-up mechanisms. As such, the regional governance has generally manifested as the hybrid model in which different governmental agencies co-shaped. The changing regional governance in the Pearl River Delta intercity railway also implies that the regional governance is sensitive to the concrete socioeconomic environment and varied case by case. In this vein, we contribute to the understanding of recentralization of state space as well as the restructuring of provincial-local relation beyond administrative subcontractor. It concludes that China’s city-regionalization is orchestrated by different levels of government and the actual effect and modality of regional governance are determined by inter-scalar politics oriented economic growth.
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Xianchun ZHANG, Xiaofan LUAN, Zhigang LI.
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Received: Mar. 22, 2019
Accepted: --
Published Online: Oct. 17, 2020
The Author Email: LUAN Xiaofan (xiaofan.luan@whu.edu.cn)