Ling Chen

Manipulating Globalization (eBook, ePUB)

The Influence of Bureaucrats on Business in China

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

The era of globalization saw China emerge as the world's manufacturing titan. However, the "made in China" model-with its reliance on cheap labor and thin profits-has begun to wane. Beginning in the 2000s, the Chinese state shifted from attracting foreign investment to promoting the technological competitiveness of domestic firms. This shift caused tensions between winners and losers, leading local bureaucrats to compete for resources in government budget, funding, and tax breaks. While bureaucrats successfully built coalitions to motivate businesses to upgrade in some cities, in others, vested interests within the government deprived businesses of developmental resources and left them in a desperate race to the bottom.

In Manipulating Globalization, Ling Chen argues that the roots of coalitional variation lie in the type of foreign firms with which local governments forged alliances. Cities that initially attracted large global firms with a significant share of exports were more likely to experience manipulation from vested interests down the road compared to those that attracted smaller foreign firms. The book develops the argument with in-depth interviews and tests it with quantitative data across hundreds of Chinese cities and thousands of firms. Chen advances a new theory of economic policies in authoritarian regimes and informs debates about the nature of Chinese capitalism. Her findings shed light on state-led development and coalition formation in other emerging economies that comprise the new "globalized" generation.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Seitenzahl: 232
• Erscheinungstermin: 12. Juni 2018
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781503605695
• Artikelnr.: 52382012

Autorenporträt

Ling Chen is Assistant Professor in the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

Inhaltsangabe

Contents and Abstracts
2Chasing Foreign Capital
chapter abstract
This chapter examines the rise of the FDI-attraction paradigm at the
national level and the emergence of local investment-seeking states in the
1990s. It explores in detail the varied strategies that city governments
employed to attract foreign investors to launch the campaign of FDI
attraction, ranging from tax cuts and land and utility discounts to
industrial zone establishments. At one end of the strategic continuum are
local governments that prioritized large, leading multinationals that have
been playing the role of the "dragon's head" at the top of the global value
chain, whereas, on the other end are cities where bureaucrats brokered
deals with small-scale foreign firms established by "guerilla investors" at
the bottom of the value chain through flexible arrangements.
3From FDI Attraction to Domestic Competitiveness
chapter abstract
This chapter traces the relative decline of the previous FDI attraction
paradigm and the emerging paradigm of domestic technology competitiveness,
drawing on government documents, media text analysis, and interviews. The
chapter then introduces the actors, arguments, and the matrix of supporting
institutions and policy tools underpinning the two policy paradigms. It
draws attention to the coexistence of the two paradigms at the local level,
where policies and institutions of FDI attraction profoundly affect the
government's response to domestic upgrading and their choice of development
strategies.
4Local Policy Making, Globalized Coalitions, and Resource Allocation
chapter abstract
This chapter delves into the coalitional politics of policy making and
resource allocation by investigating strategies of city government
officials. The chapter examines the patterns of bureaucratic competition
between international commerce departments and newly emerged domestic
technology departments and their respective business clients, including
foreign and domestic firms. I explain the influence of FDI attraction on
domestic politics by showing (1) how the overlap between FIEs and exporters
shaped the degree of perceived threat and the cohesiveness of the vested
interests in international commerce under the rule of fragmented
bureaucratic competition and (2) how the existence of large foreign firms
strengthened the bargaining power of the vested interest bureaucrats
against allocating resources to the domestic technology coalition. The
direction and the magnitude of foreign influence, therefore, is filtered
and channeled through local bureaucracy.
5The Microfoundations of State Intervention and Policy Effectiveness
chapter abstract
This chapter explains the effectiveness of policy implementation and the
varied capabilities of local governments, using policy tools to generate
firm-level upgrading incentives. Using China's largest manufacturing
industry-the electronics industry-as an example, the chapter compares the
development of China's two largest manufacturing cities, Suzhou and
Shenzhen. It demonstrates how earlier patterns of FDI attraction and the
prioritization of large or small FIEs gave rise to distinctive
foreign-domestic firm relations. Through both in-depth case studies and
hierarchical models, the chapter shows that a segregated relationship
started by the group-offshoring strategy of large FIEs makes upgrading
policies, such as government funding and tax cuts, less effective and
dampens the innovation incentives for domestic private firms. By contrast,
a more equal, broadly connected relationship started by the subcontracting
strategy of small FIEs makes upgrading policies more likely to generate
firm-level innovation behavior.
6Varieties of Local Capitalism in Historical Perspective
chapter abstract
This chapter traces the historical roots of local variation by
chronologically and cross-sectionally placing China in a comparative
historical perspective. It compares varieties of local capitalism in China
across four periods: the late Qing and early Republican period, the Mao
era, the post-Mao period, and the globalized era. It explores how the
historically entrenched top-down and bottom-up modes of capitalism have
conditioned local government preferences, as well as their reaction to
centrally driven development initiatives, leading them to attract foreign
firms in the globalized era. The narrowly selective development strategies
based on top-down capitalism were more effective in the industrial
transformation during the preglobalized era before the 1990s. The influx of
FDI since then, however, has unleashed new complexity so that cultivating
bottom-up, broadly supportive networks with small firms was more likely to
provide an institutional environment for the competitiveness of domestic
private businesses.
7Making Economic Policies Work
chapter abstract
This chapter summarizes the findings of the book. It draws attention to how
global production fragmented or integrated state agencies and businesses,
shaped the ways they perceived their interests, and ultimately affected the
local political environments for domestic private firms. Compared with
other approaches, the theory advanced in this book takes the incentives of
local state agencies seriously. It shows that in an authoritarian country
where businesses do not have a direct role in policy making, the local
bureaucrats, by pursuing their own political and economic interests, can
influence the political and economic environment of production. The chapter
then broadens out to map major Asian economies in Northeast and Southeast
Asia in a comparative picture.
1Bureaucrats, Businesses, and Economic Policies in a Globalized China
chapter abstract
This chapter introduces background on emergence of national campaigns to
cultivate domestic competitiveness in contrast to China's previous role as
the "world's workshop." It reveals the divergent ways in which localities
responded to and carried out policies. The chapter accounts for such
variation by breaking down the assumption of a coherent and single-level
state that is inherent in the state-centric approach, while at the same
time disaggregating the influence of foreign capital assumed by the
FDI-driven perspective. By examining the interaction of foreign capital and
local states, the chapter discusses how globalization influences the rise
of investment-seeking states, the bureaucratic coalitions in city policy
making, the effectiveness of policies for local firms, and the varieties of
local capitalism. It also discusses the logic of the research design, the
major sites of field work, and the sources of qualitative and quantitative
data that the book draws on.