| This dissertation examines the varied economic and social impact of fifteen years of township and village enterprise (TVE) growth in contemporary rural China in order to explain not only patterns of variation in relations of power and production across villages and townships but also to posit a theory of institutional transformation. The work is based on interviews as well as published Chinese sources (internal documents, statistical records, yearbooks, newspapers, books, etc.). Although interviews were conducted in ten Chinese counties, extensive Tianjin interviews (with municipal leaders, scholars, cadres in four counties, ten townships, and eighteen villages, and managers of over fifty factories) form the basis of the dissertation.;Growth patterns are traced for each village and township, elucidating important factors in the different roles and functions of the newly-established institutions related to rural enterprises. Results indicate that both structure and agency interact to create four main types of TVE growth trajectories, each of which correlates with different roles and functions of newly-established rural institutions, different concentrations of private and collective TVEs, and different configurations of power (particularly whether social mobility is based on a meritocracy, bureaucracy, technocracy, or on sex, lineage, or place of birth). The main variables are timing of development (before or after policy reform) and strength of collective institutions and communal norms. Timing of development is itself greatly determined by structures, especially land-to-labor ratio, infrastructure, land fertility, and historical legacies of production, commerce, and institutions. Actors also influence rural growth trajectories, but they are constrained by the other variable, local social norms, particularly those related to the legitimacy of collective institutions and to communist goals. Such local norms occupy contested space and are maintained or changed by political struggles. The causal model posited by this theory-generating work can explain development trajectories across China as well as offering insights into institutional change more generally. The degree and direction of institutional change is created by the dynamic interaction between the impetus to transform, provided by local actors and by changes in the structure, and the resistance to reform, provided by local informal norms. |
