Speaker: Siu Wai WONG, Associate Professor, Department of Building and Real estate, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
演讲人：黄小慧，香港理工大学建筑与房地产学系副教授

From the 1980s to the early 2000s, the Chinese government actively promoted local economic development and the decentralization of decision-making power, resulting in significant disparities in the accumulation of local wealth. The specific development processes and outcomes across different suburban areas in China indicate that the devolution of fiscal and administrative authority did not produce a uniform model of local government engagement in socio-economic development. However, these inconsistent governance outcomes do not imply a weakening of the central government’s authority over local governments. Based on empirical research conducted in more than 40 villages in Guangzhou, this presentation demonstrates how the interaction between state decentralization and rising income inequality has led to horizontal fragmentation in village-level governance structures, rather than vertical fragmentation within the bureaucratic governance system. As a result of this horizontal fragmentation, the strength of informal lineage-based institutions has been weakened, rather than the power of the state.
1980年代至2000年代初期，中国政府积极推动地方经济发展和决策权力下放，导致了地方财富积累出现显著差异。中国不同城郊地区的具体发展过程和结果表明，财政和行政权力的下放并没有形成地方政府参与社会经济发展的统一模式。然而，这些不一致的治理结果并不意味着中央政府对地方政府权威的减弱。基于对广州40多个村庄开展的实证研究，本次演讲展示了国家权力下放与收入不平等加剧之间的互动如何导致了村级治理结构的横向碎片化，而不是官僚治理系统的纵向碎片化。由于这种横向碎片化，非正式的基于宗族的机构实力受到削弱，而不是国家的力量。