Conjunctural China: Urbanizing party-state capitalism

Abstract

The paper explores some of the potential contributions of conjunctural analysis in urban studies and China studies, and in the dynamic crossover spaces between them. No methodological approach can accomplish everything, and none should claim monopoly status, but an argument can be made that conjunctural analysis has a distinctive and generative contribution to make in the overlapping field that includes but also exceeds “urban China studies,” in light of its defining concern with context-rich, multi-causal explanation; its commitments to exploratory, mid-level theorizing, extending cases and reconstructing flexible concepts; and its principled refusals of essentialism, reductionism, and foreclosure. More than this, as a relational and reflexive approach, conjunctural analysis navigates around the culs-de-sac of exceptionalist and introspective explanation, insisting on the animation and ongoing reconstruction of theory claims and emergent concepts, both through and across cases, against their deployment as rigid frameworks or inert foils. This is a rationale for working and indeed staying with awkward, multi-dimensional, and question-begging concepts, where they provide critical insights and demonstrable traction, as opposed to their disaggregation, dismissal, or disavowal. In this spirit, the paper explores the example of party-state capitalism, pursuant to the conjuncturalist mandate deliberatively to “stretch” and rework concepts, instead of rushing either to affirm them (as rigid templates) or to break them down (as mere foils).