ICI Co-Director Mark Frazier recently interviewed Xuefei Ren, Associate Professor of Sociology and Global Urban Studies at Michigan State University, upon the publication of her new book (Princeton University Press, 2020 ). Professor Ren is also the author of Building Globalization: Transnational Architecture Production in Urban China (University of Chicago Press, 2011) and Urban China (Polity Press, 2013).
Mark Frazier: Congratulations on the publication of Governing the Urban in China and India. You’ve published many articles in the past decade that clearly show the benefits of moving the study of urban China in more comparative directions. When did you first get interested in using urban India as a basis for comparison with urban China?
Xuefei Ren: More than a decade ago, back in 2007, I had just completed my PhD at the University of Chicago. My dissertation examined the transformation of the built environment in Chinese cities and the role of international architects.
A fellow graduate student, Liza Weinstein (now a professor at Northeastern University), had a similar topic for her dissertation—urban transformations in Mumbai. That summer we decided to work together on an article comparing demolitions and evictions in Shanghai and Mumbai. The collaboration was an exhilarating experience. I learned so much from Liza about what was going on in Indian cities. Struck by the similarities and differences between cities in the two countries, I decided to go to India and have a look with my own eyes.
Since 2007, I’ve made many trips to India and travelled all over the country. Along the way, I’ve learned from friends I met there—journalists, scholars, developers, lawyers, activists, students, and NGO staff members. They helped me get to know India. As I thought about urban life in India, I began to realize that China is not as “exceptional” as experts maintain. That’s why I believe comparison is really meaningful for understanding both countries more deeply.
Frazier: You draw a clear contrast between the patterns of urban governance in India and those in China, which you label as territorial and associational, respectively. As you note, many attempts to explain contrasts between China and India rely too heavily on distinctions between regime type (seen most often in the claim that Indian democracy cannot build infrastructure or urban services at anywhere near the speed or scale as authoritarian China), or the tautological notion of the high-capacity state. But could you draw some distinctions between your concept of associational governance found in urban India with pluralistic or shared powers in urban governance that might be found anywhere in nominally democratic polities? And I acknowledge that pluralist governance does not mean universal participation—certain groups get included, others excluded.
Ren: Comparisons between China and India regularly get reduced to the obvious distinctions of regime types and state capacity. Things work differently, it is often argued, because China is not democratic and India is, and China is a high-capacity state while India is not. I don’t dispute the premise, but it’s too simplistic.
The Chinese state is not only undemocratic and high-capacity, but also “territorial” in the way it governs cities and the society as a whole. By “territorial,” I mean that the governing technique is very much centered on a set of “territorial institutions” such as the hukou system, the rural collective land ownership, and the way China promotes local officials (i.e., based on performance within one’s own jurisdictions). All of these institutions define rights and responsibilities according to administrative jurisdictions.
India lacks similar local territorial institutions. The way it governs cities and the society, by contrast, has a strong “associational” logic. By “associational,” I mean alliance-making among key stakeholders such as the state, the private sector, and civil society groups.
Associational governance can be found in both democracies and non-democracies, but what makes India stand out is its lack of strong municipal-level institutions. This has created a vacuum of power at the city level that has given rise to a full-blown version of associational forms of governance.
Territorial and associational forms of governance can be found in all countries. China and India just happen to be at both ends of the spectrum; most other countries are probably in the middle, with a more balanced mix of both approaches.
Frazier: If, as you note, both types of urban governance have encountered serious failures in achieving more equitable and just outcomes in urban land transactions, housing, and air pollution, what is needed to attain fairer outcomes in urban India and China? Are hybrid forms of associational and territorial modes of governance possible? Is it a matter of more institutionalized forms of public participation in urban governance?
Ren: China needs to loosen up its territorial institutions and strip them of some of their power. For example, the hukou system needs to be relaxed. Hukou reform has been ongoing for two decades but has not delivered real benefits for rural hukou holders, especially rural migrants in large cities. Change is also needed for other territorial institutions—such as the evaluation criteria for local officials—to promote more even growth across regions.
And India needs to strengthen its territorial institutions, especially at the municipal level. My colleague, [former ICI Fellow] Partha Mukhopadhyay, once remarked that without strong city governments, Indian cities would continue to be “driver-less” engines for economic growth.
Like you suggested, more institutionalized forms of public participation are important. To make that happen, however, civil society groups not only must be mobilized, but municipal institutions also have to be strengthened.
Frazier: As you know from your discussions with urban policymakers and practitioners in China and India, there’s a persistent view found in each country that urban China has little if anything to learn from India’s experience, and conversely, urban India has everything to learn from China’s urban experience. On the latter point, you quote a revealing passage from an Indian novel in one of your chapters. What would be your response to these claims?
Ren: There’s an imbalance in information. Many Chinese officials and business people simply don’t know much about India. When Chinese officials take international “study tours,” most of them choose to visit the U.S. and Europe. If they knew more about India, they would find many points of comparison to be illuminating and meaningful. On the other hand, Indian policymakers and business leaders who understand China are very aware of the pitfalls of the Chinese model of development—high levels of inequality, over-investment in infrastructure, unsustainable land-based municipal financing, dominance of state capital, and the large rural-urban divide.
Frazier: From what you’ve seen thus far of the respective responses by urban governments in China and India to the Covid-19 pandemic, is there a similar contrast in styles of urban governance (territorial, associational) playing out with public health agencies?
Ren: I think so. The two countries’ approaches to contain Covid-19 offer good illustrations of territorial vs. associational approaches to crisis management.
China’s “war” over Covid-19, and its partial success so far, has mostly rested on local territorial institutions at the city and neighborhood level. Neighborhoods are divided into grids (blocks of a few hundred households), and multiple authorities, such as street offices, neighborhood committees, property management companies, and district governments are put in charge of each grid to conduct contact tracing and enforce quarantining. This is what Wuhan and many other cities have been doing. It has worked very well, for now at least.
In India, the key actors at the frontline of fighting the pandemic are not local territorial institutions, but federal and state governments and agencies, in conjunction with the courts, NGOs, and sometimes private corporations. As the responsibility over public health emergencies is rested in state governments, the containment of Covid-19 has varied greatly across states. Kerala, for example, has done very well; other places, such as Delhi, have fared less well. Resident Welfare Associations have been active, but mostly in the middle- and upper-middle class communities. In urban areas, instead of local territorial institutions, it is the police who have played a key role in enforcing lockdown orders.
India’s lockdown has triggered a migrant crisis, and the management of the crisis has exhibited strong associational characters as well. The relief effort has been coordinated by an array of civil society groups and private organizations in addition to federal and state governments. Local municipal institutions have not played a major role, as they lack capacity to handle a humanitarian crisis at this scale.
Frazier: In an interesting historical chapter, you trace the roots of territorial governance in China and associational governance in India back several centuries—well before their current formulations in the Republic of India and the People’s Republic of China. If these modes of urban governance are so deeply rooted, what pressures or sources of change might shift them in other directions of governance?
Ren: Change can come from all directions. In the case of China’s hukou reform, for instance, the pressure is coming from the top. The central government has been pushing for hukou reform to give more opportunities to rural households. By 2020, 100 million people will convert their rural hukou to urban. Pushback will come from city governments, which have to cover the costs by providing welfare for these new urban hukou holders.
The vast Indian diaspora offers huge untapped potential for the country to strengthen its local territorial institutions. In India, many talented young people are taking positions in state and municipal governments. I recently met a bright student from Rajasthan studying in the U.S.. After completing his studies in public health and environment, he’s going back to his post with the government of Jaipur. I think one source of change is human capital being built up in the local governments in India.