Dialectic incrementalism: Innovation case in hengqin (China)

Abstract

The Special Area of Hengqin, in the People’s Republic of China, implements public policies that are characterized as innovative, both in official documents and by local de-cision-makers. In this sense, we ask: How the Hengqin policy-making process explain innovation? The case and process tracing study, with in-depth interviews and narrative analysis, detects that the process is based on a state corporatism framework and combines incentives for political competition, control against corruption, vertical accountability and, over all, incremental interaction focus on dialectic between actors and information rivalry. We built the original concept of dialectic incrementalism to reflect the distinctive element of this particular process of public policies that explain innovation in Hengqin.