| My dissertation uses the Three Gorges project to examine the political strategies deployed by the authoritarian regime in Dengist and post-Dengist China to sustain its power despite social discontent. In particular, I trace how the ideology of development employed by the Chinese government evolved in the face of contingencies arising out of modernization. Using the theory of Louis Althusser, I argue that ideology has a material existence, in that it is organized around a core set of values, ideas, and beliefs that acquire a concrete presence through linguistic articulations, signified physical objects, and semiotic practices. What I call the "ideological practices of development," including the transfiguration of the natural landscape, the restructuring of the socioeconomic order, and the transformation of people's subjectivities from agrarian villagers to modern workers, instantiate and thereby reproduce the idea of advancement through the everyday activities of living, commuting, and working in a new built environment. I argue that these daily practices, which actualize in people's experience the concept of regional development and national progress, reproduce the state's power by affirming the party's capacity to deliver economic prosperity and material enrichment.;The form of power I examine, however, is not static, and it does not succeed in totalizing. When the ideology and prescribed tactics were instantiated in real life, unintended consequences emerged: the causality between developmental culture and political dominance was not unidirectional, and it was full of contradictions. In the dissertation, I demonstrate that the state, faced with conflicts (a defiant Chinese society in the 1980s), miscalculations (such as collapsed bridges), and resistance (from local villagers and global environmental activists), constantly adapts its development strategies to uphold its political persuasiveness. The need for constant adaptation opens up the possibility of transformation in the mode of power, which sheds light on the study of the durability of authoritarian regimes. |
