Quasi-federalism in power relationships in local governance in China
Local government in China plays a crucial role in urban and rural development, and studying the power dynamics among local governments in developed cities with varying urban-rural gaps can help identify models that reduce these gaps. Over the past 50 years, the region-prefecture reform gradually decentralized power before partially re-centralizing it. Today, the prefecture government withdrew executive power from the county-level government and was subject to the provincial government upwards, while still delegating fiscal power to the county-level government. The power relationships among local governments, particularly between prefecture and county-level governments, are essential, especially in cities with more balanced urban-rural development, where a quasi-federalism model has emerged. Scholars have applied federalism theories to help reduce the wealth gap and achieve coordinate balanced regional development. Despite there are lots of research on federalism and quasi-federalism, most studies have focused on power dynamics between the central and state governments, overlooking the power dynamics within local governments.
Therefore, the mainly focuses are on
1) What is the power relationship between local governments and how do they affect urban and rural development?
2) How does quasi-federalism work in Chinese local governments?
3) What factors encourage or discourage quasi-federalism?
The power relationships of local governments in China and am committed to examining issues related to the urban-rural gap from the perspective of federalism
Yang, X. M., 2021. Factors Influencing Childbearing Intentions among Female Employees of Department M in the Public Sector in China under the “Two-Child” Policy. Open Journal of Leadership.