Local Governance Innovation in China

Jessica C. Teets is Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department at Middlebury College, USA. William Hurst is Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University, USA.

• Introduction: The Politics and Patterns of Policy Diffusion in China 1. Diffusion of Policy Defiance among Chinese Local Officials 2. Grassroots Reactions to Relocation: the Diffusion of Compensation Strategies 3. Flying Land: Intergovernmental Cooperation in Local Economic Development in China 4. Policy Diffusion in Corporate Restructuring: Case Studies of Local Government Interventions 5. Grasping the Large and Releasing the Small: a Bottom-Up Perspective on Reform in a County-Level Enterprise 6. China’s Grassroots NGOs and the Local State: Catalysts for Policy Entrepreneurship 7. Public Security Bureaus’ Containment Strategy toward Protestant House Churches 8. Election Reform from the Middle and at the Margins 9. Conclusion: Compliance, Resistance, Innovation and Involution: Assessing the Mechanisms of Policy Diffusion

"This edited volume makes a significant contribution to a burgeoning literature on sub-national policy experimentation and diffusion in China. Bringing together nine rich and varied case studies, the volume sets out to more systematically theorize the pathways and processes of local policy innovation and diffusion, important for their potential to effect large-scale change." - Stephen Trott, Pacific Affairs: Volume 89, No. 3 – September 2016"The book provides an insightful theoretical framework for explaining and understanding the politics of policy formulation and implementation at the subnational level in China." - Dr. Lisheng Dong, University of Glasgow, Journal of Chinese Political Science (JCPS)