| This thesis studies the impact of economic reforms on small-town development in post-Mao China through a political economy approach which emphasizes an agency and structure synthesis and the central role of the state, and applies these perspectives in a case study of small-town development in the Pearl River Delta region. It also acknowledges that both the "diffusion" concept of the modernization theory and the growth version of dependency theory highlight aspects which are partially useful for the explanation of Chinese small-town development.;The process of Chinese small-town development might be described as a hybrid: a localized, spontaneous, i.e. class-based, peasants' movement under the promotion of centrally directed reform policies. In certain regions of coastal China, such as the Pearl River Delta, small-town development has also benefited from the effect of diffusion from the outside world, and one can see an emerging pattern of dependent development, which is an aspect of the overall restructured world system produced by the New International Division of Labour. (Abstract shortened by UMI.). |
