China's rapid urbanization has amazed the world, with over 500 million rural peasants becoming urban residents in just three decades. However, this process has been marked by significant variations in local governance practices across the country. While researchers have focused on the effects of central state power decentralization on local state restructuring, little attention has been paid to how the institutional complexities of village governance impact the collective power of villagers to resist the state. To address this gap, our study presents a comparative case study of different village organizations and governance institutions.

Our research, based on nearly two decades of fieldwork in Guangzhou, Beijing, and Yiwu, examines the evolution, processes, and outcomes of property rights and welfare reforms in more than 50 urbanizing villages. Our findings reveal the emergence of three village governance models – community-led, state-led, and market-led – driven by various forms of state intervention in the process of urbanization. These models provide different forms of institutional framework for local initiatives to promote self-governance and respond to state interventions during urban transformation.

These findings have both theoretical and practical implications. The impact of urbanization on local governance in China is a topic of increasing scholarly interest. One central question in this debate is why the diversity of governance practices does not challenge the subordinate relationship between localities and the central state. Our study's findings shed light on the changing nature of state interventions and their actual influence on the daily practice of grassroots governance, providing new insights to unravel this puzzle. From a practical standpoint, our findings offer valuable insights for improving the operation of village organizations and critically evaluating the impact of city government interventions. This will inform policy-making and guide local actions towards people-oriented urbanization, poverty alleviation, and rural revitalization, which have gained prominence in China and beyond.

中国快速的城市化进程令世界惊叹，短短三十年间，就有 5 亿多农村农民成为城市居民。然而，在这一过程中，全国各地的地方治理实践却存在巨大差异。虽然研究人员一直关注中央国家权力下放对地方国家结构调整的影响，但很少有人关注村庄治理的制度复杂性如何影响村民抵制国家的集体力量。为了弥补这一不足，我们的研究对不同的村级组织和治理机构进行了比较案例研究。

我们的研究基于在广州、北京和义乌近二十年的田野调查，考察了 50 多个城市化村庄中产权和福利改革的演变、过程和结果。我们的研究结果表明，在城市化进程中，在各种形式的国家干预推动下，出现了三种村庄治理模式：社区主导型、国家主导型和市场主导型。这些模式为地方倡议提供了不同形式的制度框架，以促进自治并应对城市转型过程中的国家干预。

这些发现具有理论和实践意义。城市化对中国地方治理的影响是一个越来越受学者关注的话题。这场辩论的一个核心问题是，为什么治理实践的多样性并没有挑战地方与中央政府之间的从属关系。我们的研究结果揭示了国家干预的性质变化及其对基层治理日常实践的实际影响，为解开这一谜题提供了新的视角。从实践的角度来看，我们的研究结果为改善村级组织的运作和批判性地评估城市政府干预的影响提供了宝贵的见解。这将为政策制定提供依据，并指导地方行动，以实现以人为本的城镇化、扶贫和乡村振兴，这在中国和其他国家都已取得了显著成效。

China’s urban population has undergone a substantial surge, increasing from 191 million in 1980 to approximately 920 million in 2022. This impressive urban growth can be attributed to the active stimulation of market forces, endorsement of decentralized decision-making, and fostering of local economic development by the Chinese government. However, the expected neoliberal growth has not materialized despite this urbanization process. Previous studies primarily attributed this outcome to the authoritarian tradition of the socialist state. This research draws on over two decades of intensive field research encompassing various village redevelopment projects in Southern China. The findings challenge the prevailing notion by proposing that the indigenous village communities wield significant influence over the trajectory of neoliberal growth and governance transformation in the country. As a result, this study emphasizes the importance of adopting a micro-historical approach to incorporate the role of village communities into the analysis of state-society power dynamics in unbanning China.

中国的城市人口经历了大幅增长，从 1980 年的 1.91 亿增加到 2022 年的约 9.2 亿。这一令人印象深刻的城市增长可归功于中国政府对市场力量的积极刺激、对分散决策的认可以及对地方经济发展的促进。然而，在城市化进程中，预期的新自由主义增长并未实现。以往的研究主要将这一结果归咎于社会主义国家的专制传统。本研究以二十多年来对中国南方多个村庄重建项目的深入实地研究为基础。研究结果提出，原住村落社区对中国新自由主义增长和治理转型的轨迹具有重大影响，从而挑战了普遍的观念。因此，本研究强调了采用微观历史方法将乡村社区的作用纳入解禁中国的国家-社会权力动态分析的重要性。

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