Theorising urban development in China: ‘State entrepreneurialism’ from the ground up

Abstract

Instead of generating a grand theory from urban China, I have a rather modest aim – how we might use the political-economic perspective to better understand China's urban development politics. Rather than treating empirical materials and theoretical insights as discrete entities, describing China should itself be regarded as a process of theorisation, contributing to a more global Urban Studies. We illustrate how ‘state entrepreneurialism’, as a quite peculiar form of governance, is generated from the conjunctural development of global capitalism and its crises. Hence, the role of the state is not a starting point for theoretical enquiry but rather a historical and material development of China's political economy.