Theories behind Change of Land Expropriation Institutions in Cross-Strait: An Analysis from Historical Institutionalism Approach

Rapid urbanization in developing countries has led to an increasing demand for urban construction land. As a result, many farmers’ lands have been expropriated by local governments, exacerbating the imbalance between land supply and demand. This issue is particularly pronounced in Chinese Mainland, where land expropriation institutions have operated at a suboptimal level for an extended period. While existing research has explored the current practices and potential avenues for the optimization of the horizontal aspects of land expropriation institutions in Chinese Mainland, there remains a dearth of academic inquiry from a historical developmental and comparative analytical perspective. To address this gap, this article uses the analytical framework of historical institutionalism and combines it with the comparison case method and in-depth interviews to analyze the fundamental path, logic, and dynamic mechanism behind land expropriation institutional change in Cross-Strait and provide insights for similar developing countries. Research shows that Cross-Strait land expropriation institutions have gone through five different stages of development, and finally evolved in the direction of narrowing the scope of expropriation and increasing the compensation for expropriation. Cross-Strait land expropriation institutions show a triple logic in terms of change types, change paths, and change processes: in terms of change types, there are compulsory changes and mutual games between induced factors and actors pushing for compulsory changes; in terms of change paths, there are patterns of displacement, drift, conversion, and layering; and in terms of gradual change processes, path dependence characteristics become apparent within Cross-Strait land expropriation institutions. The synergistic interaction among the institutional milieu, ideas, and actors constitutes the dynamic mechanisms for the change of land expropriation institutions in Cross-Strait.