ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights how local political elites shape and steer governance in China’s vast rural areas where local officials act as both agents of the central state and lower level principals, who enjoy considerable autonomy and power, but also are subject to a number of institutional and policy constraints determined by the central state. It shows that how structural constraints impacting on the field of local politics have been managed by county and township cadres to ensure adjusted, innovative and effective policy implementation. In rural China, where the gap between local cadres and the populace is huge in terms of economic, cultural, social and symbolic capital, the former are well aware of their elite status. For the case of contemporary China, T. Heberer and G. Schubert conceptualized county and township cadres in their respective jurisdictions as ‘strategic groups’ and grounded their analytical approach on key concepts of Bourdieuan theory.
