The state, market and the political economy of peasant migration in contemporary China

This dissertation is simultaneously an empirical study of the contemporary Chinese peasant migration and a theoretical analysis of the relationship between the state, market and migration during the reform era in China. The empirical puzzle relates to the sudden upsurge of rural-to-urban migration in the 1980s and 1990s after a prolonged period of relatively little population movement in the preceding decades. In seeking answers to this puzzle, the author adopts a political economy approach that focuses on the interplay of political (state) and economic (market) forces during the reform and on the institutional environment structuring peasant movement to cities. This approach foregrounds the political dynamic underlying what is normally regarded as a spatio-economic process. It presents an alternative interpretation of contemporary Chinese migration to three conventional explanations from the liberal, structuralist and state-society perspectives.; The author distinguishes three types of migrants who have moved to divergent economic sectors (state, private and informal) in the cities through different auspices of migration (through state-sponsorship, “labor market” institutions and informal networks). He argues that contemporary peasant migration in China cannot be adequately understood as a market-driven process or simply as a process appendant to the development of Chinese capitalism. The Chinese state has to be brought into the equation. The state's role can be seen not only in its direct sponsorship of particular migration groups, but in the creation of material conditions for peasant exodus to cities and in the construction of “market” institutions facilitating migration. Migrants' interaction with the state underscores the fragmented nature of the Chinese state under the increasing pressures of competition. By highlighting the role of the state and the political nature of the market, this thesis contributes to the on-going debate on the nature of Chinese reform and to the broader literature on the politics of market construction.