Embracing market and civic actor participation in public rental housing governance: new insights about power distribution

In recent decades, government intervention in welfare states has witnessed a shift from ‘government’ to ‘governance’: policy making shifted from hierarchical government steering to mixed forms involving government, market and civic actors. Such terminology has also entered Chinese policy language on public rental housing (PRH) provision. To unravel the perceived power distribution in the relationships between the involved actors, this article draws from in-depth interviews in two Chinese cities: Chongqing and Fuzhou. The article thereby contributes new insights to the perceived power relations in Chinese PRH provision on the ground. It also develops an analytical framework based on Billis by complementing it with Social Network Analysis to measure the power relations. Such a framework will allow the comparison of different governance systems across time and different jurisdictions within and beyond China. This study shows the structures and mechanisms for non-governmental actors to play a role, which they do not have in the ‘government’ period, in the governance of PRH.