With Strings Attached? Improving the Administration of Central State Financed Investment Projects in the PRC

Bibliographic Data

ID6233373
AuthorsLin Kun-Chin, Kun‐chin Lin (0000-0003-4556-3061, corresponding author)
Year2007
Volume15
Issue3
Pages319-343
Publication date2007-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAsian Journal of Political Science (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0218-5377 • E-ISSN: 1750-7812
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/02185370701731069
OpenAlexW2011740775
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited67

This article takes a new look at the institutional core of China's economic planning—the State Development and Planning Commission (SDPC, 1998–2003)—focusing on its role in approving and fundraising for major capital investment projects. The primary objective of this inquiry is to identify changes in the network structure and procedures of inter-agency relations and central planners’ interactions with national legislators, which have produced a diversity of ‘organizational microclimates’ that shape the coherence of the national economic bureaucracy and central–local fiscal relations. Based on interviews of high-level officials and case studies of investment projects in energy, information technology, and transport sectors, it is argued that administrative reforms aiming to improve SDPC's regulatory capacity have been predicated on a concerted effort by key agencies and ministries under the State Council to reduce the window of opportunity for local and industrial interests to politicize capital allocation decisions. This finding suggests caution in interpreting contemporary China through the comparative lenses of a developmental state, a regulatory state, or a fiscal federalist system

Agency (philosophy · Bureaucracy · China · Commission · Decentralization · Economic system · Economics · Federalist · Investment (military · Market economy · Political science · Politics · Revenue · Sociology · State (computer science · Asian Industrial and Economic Development · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Law · Public Administration · Socioeconomic Development in Asia · Finance