Students in rural China are dropping out of secondary school at troubling rates. While there is considerable quantitative research on this issue, no systematic effort has been made to assess the deeper reasons behind student decision making through a mixed-methods approach. This article seeks to explore the prevalence, correlates and potential reasons for rural dropout throughout the secondary education process. It brings together results from eight large-scale survey studies covering 24,931 rural secondary students across four provinces, as well as analysis of extensive interviews with 52 students from these same study sites. The results show that the cumulative dropout rate across all windows of secondary education may be as high as 63 per cent. Dropping out is significantly correlated with low academic performance, high opportunity cost, low socio-economic status and poor mental health. A model is developed to suggest that rural dropout is primarily driven by two mechanisms: rational cost-benefit analysis or impulsive, stress-induced decision making.

Existing literature on China's urbanization focuses primarily on the expansion of cities and towns, with little attention being paid to urban renewals. The wasteful use of urban land has conventionally been attributed to the ambiguous definition and ineffective protection of property rights. This study examines recent practices in urban redevelopment in Guangzhou – a site chosen by the central authorities to pilot urban renewals (sanjiu gaizao). The research identifies a local practice in which institutional changes are made not in the delineation of land property rights but instead in the redistribution of the benefits to be made from land redevelopment. Current users of the land are offered a share of the land conveyance income previously monopolized by the state as an incentive to encourage them to engage in urban renewal. Land-use intensity and efficiency have increased, along with social exclusion and marginalization. Research findings cast doubt over the perceived notion that the uniform and unambiguous definition of property rights is the prerequisite for improved land-use efficiency and call for a critical evaluation of the current urban renewal policies that completely ignore the interests of the migrant population who outnumber local residents by a large margin.

Since the early 1990s, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has put in place a series of measures to allow more Party members to participate in the cadre selection process. “Intra-party democracy” was promoted as a remedy to solve the corruption and social tension that resulted from overly concentrated personnel power. How effective are these formal procedures in constraining the appointment power of core Party leaders and institutionalizing the influence of a larger group of cadres? Drawing on archival research, interviews and quantitative data, this paper examines two components of intra-party democratic reform: “democratic recommendation,” which serves as a gateway to cadre promotion, and the semi-competitive elections at Party congresses. This in-depth study finds that the efforts to expand bottom-up participation are hindered by loopholes in formal regulations, informal practices and the frequent rotation of Party officials. Meanwhile, the reform measures have brought changes to the personnel system by complicating the Party secretaries' exercise of appointment power and altering the incentives of ambitious cadres. The implementation of intra-party democracy could improve the vitality of one-party rule, and its ebbs and flows imply a divide within China's top leadership over the direction of political change.

Land requisitions for urban development have led to a rapid growth of wealthy, autonomous villages in southern China. However, the underlying causes of this emerging phenomenon and its impact on local governance have been largely unexplored by the existing literature. Through an in-depth analysis of the contestations and negotiations between the local state and villagers when dealing with the various problems arising from land compensation, this study explains how and why land requisitions strengthened the collective power of villagers in defending their rightful interests. This bolstered power has in turn forced the local state constantly to adjust its tactics when addressing the needs of villagers in order to avoid widespread conflicts and potential social unrest. The findings provide new insights into the complexities of land conflicts and their actual impact on state–village power restructuring in southern China.