ABSTRACT
A striking aspect of the recent literature on rural governance in China is that it has begun to open the black box of how the local state actually works. This paper will attempt to distill this new research. However, engagement with the internal workings of the local Chinese state is still limited. In part, this arises from academic fashions (such as ‘civil society’) that dominate the discourse on China for periods of time. In part, the lacuna arises from the success of the Chinese regime in defining the sorts of ‘problems’ local scholars and media outlets are given license to pursue. In the largest part, however, it arises from the difficulty in accessing sites to undertake long-term fieldwork in rural areas.
