Social Networks and Political Change in Contemporary Rural China

This project offers a new explanation of political change in contemporary rural China. Building on doctoral research into relations between different levels of rural administration, it takes current debates beyond the one-dimensional institutional approach to investigate the ways in which social networks and informal groupings interact with state institutions to affect the redistribution of resources. Based on extensive fieldwork in the Chinese countryside analysis will illuminate local chains of decision-making and the calculus of pressures and incentives that shape the behaviour of local state actors and community leaders.