During field research on environmental governance in the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in 2012, the author studied the Chinese state's efforts to promote its agenda and “civilizing mission,” the resistance of local Yi people to both, and the resulting clash of discourses on environmental protection. To understand the nature and mechanisms involved in this conflict, the author focuses on the state's “civilizing mission” in light of Foucault's power concept. The article examines two issues: 1) the strategies by which the central state exerts power and asserts its policies in a minority area, i.e. how it attempts to steer the behaviour of local cadres in order to implement its modernization concept, and 2) whether and to what degree it makes a difference that the researched area is a “minority” (Yi) area. To answer these questions, one county in the prefecture was taken as a case study. Furthermore, this article continuously refers to the policy field of environmental governance to substantiate the thesis of a civilizing project conducted by the centre.

This article investigates a prominent but little discussed CCP central organ, the Central Discipline Inspection Commission (CDIC), and its local discipline inspection commissions (DICs) in the post-Mao era. It analyses how the CCP exerts its control over the disciplinary organizations and argues that the disciplinary agencies' lack of autonomy hinders their efforts to crack down on corruption. This article investigates the important role played by the CDIC in CCP politics by examining its organizational structure, modes of operation and criteria for imposing disciplinary sanctions, and evaluates the measures and approaches employed by the Party's disciplinary organizations to combat corruption. The study concludes that structural, institutional and cultural factors hinder the effectiveness of the CCP's disciplinary agencies in their efforts to control Party members, officials and corruption.

Situated in an agricultural township in northern China, this study examines the rise of produce markets in rural China in the face of a chronic shortage of financial capital. Drawing on theoretical ideas in economic sociology, we explicate the mechanisms of gift exchange and credit taking and the conditions under which these mechanisms are used to mobilize financial capital and to facilitate market transactions in the absence of financial capital. We illustrate these issues and ideas using our fieldwork research on different produce markets and entrepreneurial activities.

How does the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) secure the loyalty of its coercive leaders, and its public security chiefs in particular, in the face of numerous domestic protests every year? This article presents the first quantitative analysis of contemporary China's coercive leaders using an original data set of provincial public security chiefs and public security funding during the reform era. I demonstrate that the CCP, owing to its concern for regime stability, has empowered the public security chiefs by incorporating them into the leadership team. Empowered public security chiefs then have stronger bargaining power over budgetary issues. I rely on fieldwork, qualitative interviews and an analysis of Party documents to complement my statistical analysis. The findings of this analysis shed light on the understanding of regime durability, contentious politics and the bureaucracy in China.

Inter-jurisdictional water resource issues constitute a growing political and economic challenge in China. This article examines three such cases of hydropolitics, namely large dam construction, water resource allocation, and downstream water pollution, through the lens of central–local relations. It argues that the hydropolitics in China are characterized by the pursuit of localized preferences within the constraints imposed by a centralized political system. In each case, the primary actors are sub-national administrative units, who adopt various competitive strategies to pursue their own localized interests at the expense of neighbouring jurisdictions. This article argues that although vertical control mechanisms in the Chinese system effectively limit central–local preference divergence, they do little to contain horizontal conflicts between sub-national administrative units. The paucity of formal inter-jurisdictional dispute resolution mechanisms is a major barrier to meeting water resource challenges, and inter-jurisdictional collective action problems are likely to pose growing difficulties for the Chinese political system.

The abolition of agricultural taxes (AAT) (2005–2006) significantly changed the workload, finance, authority and functions of village governments. In agricultural regions, village cadres had their agendas reset, with the top priority switching to the search for new revenues through “attracting investment” (zhaoshang yinzi). This new agenda fits perfectly with the demands of township governments. Facing an even worse fiscal crisis, township governments attempted to cover up their deficits using village revenues. The shared stake in increasing revenue has resulted in the convergence of the functions of township and village authorities. However, the change in the function of village governments has increased the disengagement between cadres and villagers.