Collective action in implementing top-down land policy: the case of Chengdu, China

Rapid urbanization in China has led to the increasing scarcity of land suitable and available for construction. Concurrently, rural depopulation has resulted in many vacant properties, including farmhouses and buildings. In order to address this issue, a national land transfer policy has been implemented since the early 2000s in which vacant rural properties are returned to agriculture in return for similar areas of peri-urban land being released for construction. While there have been many different approaches to policy implementation, most commentators agree that successful schemes are characterized by the involvement of local people. As yet, however, there has been little research into how such local collective action is organized, and whether it is really possible to address top-down policies through local, bottom-up, action. Based on a case study of the earliest pilot program in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, we seek to demonstrate that the top-down nature of China’s land transfer policy does not mean that it is necessarily best implemented in a top-down manner. Indeed, we suggest that effective collective action is crucial to the realization of such policies. In particular, the case study indicates that with the empowerment of villagers to participate in the policy process it is possible to achieve a broad consensus on the best approach to addressing the problems, with community interests protected and properly monitoring. In offering a new way of understanding collective action, we conclude that even in cases where a top-down approach is imposed, communities can be empowered to act collectively in implementing the policy from the bottom-up.