The informal power configuration of local government and economic development policy in China

Abstract

The spatial variation of local economic policies in Zhejiang province from the 1950s to 1990s can be traced back to the communist revolution prior to 1949. We argue that the revolutionary history shaped the informal power configurations at the county level in Zhejiang province, which in turn determined the attitudes of local officials toward capitalist developments in both the Maoist and reform eras. More specifically, if a particular locality had established local guerrillas, local officials were motivated to protect local economic interests and facilitate economic development for the sake of political survival. After the field armies took over Zhejiang province, local cadres with guerrilla backgrounds were marginalized in politics and thus were compelled to mitigate the vulnerability to potential attacks through garnering support of grassroots cadres and the masses. We test our hypothesis by using Zhejiang province county-level data from 1952 to 1998.