This chapter clarifies why blunt force regulation is so distinctive. It begins by outlining two underlying logics regulatory enforcement, namely, “rules-based” regulation (which prioritizes effectiveness) and “risk-based” regulation (which prioritizes efficiency). Drawing on case details, it then illustrates how blunt force regulation fits into neither category, offering neither efficient nor effective regulation in the long-term. Instead, it represents an unusual combination of indiscriminate enforcement (which devalues compliances) and arbitrary but inflexible enforcement (which increases regulatory distrust and business uncertainty). This raises the question: Why blunt force regulation?

During the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) and the Sent-Down Youth Movement (1968–1980), the latter bringing millions of urban youth to the countryside, the city and the countryside converged in unprecedented ways. Focusing on the period from 1966 until the establishment of the One Child Policy in 1979, this chapter uses rare court records, medical guides, and memoirs to analyze the evolving tensions among national directives, local policy implementation, and grassroots sexual realities. Although the deployment of minimally trained “barefoot doctors” helped integrate state-led family planning into the rural healthcare system, local authorities used the court system to arbitrarily police abortions. By creating unprecedented opportunities for sex among unmarried youth with limited access to prophylactics, the state paved the way for the contemporary reliance on abortion as a primary tool for family planning.

This chapter argues that the Chinese leadership is trying to transition out of blunt force regulation by increasing investments in 1) conventional regulatory institutions, which offer more efficient, sustainable pollution control, and 2) bottom-up enforcement, where citizens are used as “fire alarms” to strengthen the threat of conventional enforcement institutions.Using a case study of antipollution protests in a wealthy Chinese city – a case that, at the outset, appeared likely to succeed at improving government enforcement – this chapter examines how the state’s ambivalence to civil society activism closes off channels for effective bottom-up enforcement. Further interview evidence reveals that as an authoritarian state, Chinese officials fear the accountability mechanisms (such as a free press, independent judiciary, and community activism) that make bottom-up enforcement so effective in other countries. These limitations have pushed the leadership to repeatedly return to blunt force solutions, suggesting that it is not just a transition phase.

This chapter probes the short- and long-term costs of blunt force regulation. Case studies and local news reports show that workers do protest, businesses do resist, and local bureaucrats do publicly criticize the short-term nature of blunt force solutions. How does the state guard against the political risks of blunt force regulation? Using two cities as case studies – one wealthy and developed, and the other poor and industrial – this chapter shows how the state concentrates the costs of blunt force pollution reduction on the groups that are the least able to push back. It targets smaller, private firms or industries that rely on temporary, transient labor. These strategies are effective at preventing unrest, but exacerbate inefficiencies in the economy and may complicate efforts to reduce pollution in the future.

This chapter starts with the central puzzle of this book: Why do governments choose blunt force regulation to control pollution when more reasonable, sustainable solutions are possible? It proposes that governments choose this suboptimal approach because they seek, first and foremost, to overcome principal–agent problems within the state apparatus. Drawing on case research and interviews with government officials around China, this chapter illustrates how blunt force regulation creates shortcuts that allow political leaders to increase the credible threat of punishment towards noncompliant bureaucrats. These measures temporarily scare local authorities into enforcing policies as ordered, even after prolonged periods of noncompliance. Finally, this chapter offers some observable implications for this theory, which will be tested in ensuing chapters.

The epilogue addresses the question of what can be ascertained from studying sex and reproduction in the longue durée. As demonstrated by the enduring reliance on abortion as birth control, family planning remains deeply gendered with women shouldering much of this burden. The persistence of eugenic ideas and the state’s intrusive but uneven policing of sexuality have been features of Chinese history since the early twentieth century. Despite ongoing changes in fertility policies, attitudes toward contraception and perceptions of what constitutes the ideal family remain diverse.

This chapter broadens the scope of the analysis to assess whether blunt force regulation is unique to China. It reveals that blunt force regulation is a widespread political phenomenon found in both advanced industrial environments (like the UK) and weak institutional environments (like India and the Philippines). When political leaders confront urgent or overwhelming enforcement problems, they sometimes resort to unreasonable, one-size-fits-all measures to ensure that enforcement actions are effective. Through analyzing these cases, this chapter concludes that blunt force regulation is one of a set of potential responses to the inevitable principal–agent problems of regulation. However, the character of blunt force regulation – including how forceful or indiscriminate it is – is shaped by institutional features such as a state’s resource capabilities and coercive capacity.

In the wake of the Great Leap Forward, the State Council ordered the establishment of community family planning programs. Taking up the call for “birth planning,” officials sought to weave birth control into the local cultural fabric through plays, exhibitions, and focus groups while countering the traditional preference for large families. Yet, resource shortages, contradictory messages from the state about the efficacy of traditional medicine, and individual distrust or dislike of birth control continually undermined efforts to more systematically monitor and control reproduction. In this context, contraceptive practices involved ongoing negotiation among diverse actors: provincial and local birth planning authorities, as well as individuals and their families.