Infrastructure provision in China: A cross-sectoral and multi-level analysis
Final Report Abstract
The project achieved numerous key research goals despite hard research conditions, given by a tightening political research climate in China and the Covid Pandemic. First, the infrastructure database on China shed new lights on cost performances and theoretical factors. Second, the meta-analysis on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) further provided insights into the complex area of Chinese infrastructure investments abroad, using a bottom-up approach. Third, the projects included new insights into state-society relations in authoritarian context, by studying citizen participation trends. Finally, the project looked at how Chinese infrastructure projects are perceived abroad, showing that soft power instruments can influence citizen attitudes. The findings from this project offered numerous surprises. First, China does not perform as positive as often assumed in infrastructure provision, as cost and time overruns and planning mismanagement frequently occur. Drawing a large infrastructure database and case studies, the project identified numerous key determinants for these failures, including China’s fragmented and highly decentralised authoritarian system, project management flaws, and competing interests in the central-local relations dynamic. Second, our research on the Belt and Road Initiative, presents that the BRI is not in all cases, as often assumed, a central government-led top-down project but instead also took shape with local governments initiating competing projects. Third, the project’s focus on digital infrastructure further showed how perceptions of digital infrastructure are positive, both within China and abroad (South East Asia and Africa). Finally, the findings on citizen participation in China highlight that the level of digital engagement through the provision of digital infrastructure is very high.
Publications
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Socio-Economic Development and Infrastructure Cost Performance in China: Comparing Transport and Energy Sectors. Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, 49(2), 185-206.
Rabe, Wiebke; Kostka, Genia & Habich-Sobiegalla, Sabrina
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Leaping over the Dragon's Gate: The “Air Silk Road” between Henan Province and Luxembourg. The China Quarterly, 249, 160-182.
Rabe, Wiebke & Kostka, Genia
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China’s growing digital reach: explaining citizens’ high approval rates of fintech investments in Southeast Asia. Review of International Political Economy, 30(3), 1098-1124.
Rabe, Wiebke & Kostka, Genia
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he “Pragmatic Script”. Book chapter manuscript, forthcoming in edited volume by Michael Zürn and Amrita Narlikar, Oxford University Press.
Kostka, G. & Rabe, W.
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ICT-based environmental participation in China: Same, same but digital?. Environmental Science & Policy, 154, 103688.
Bondes, Maria; Kostka, Genia & Rabe, Wiebke
