Bargaining state-society relationships under state entrepreneurialism: community engagement beyond the resettlement process in Shanghai

Community engagement in China is mostly understood as absent, tokenistic and characterised by the state’s carrot and stick model of compensation and repression. Drawing on Shanghai Lingang and by looking beyond the process of resettlement, I demonstrate instances where residents can bargain and force concessions from the state and influence development outcomes. To ensure social stability, Lingang’s resettled residents are offered compensation. However, collective mobilisation arises when the state is unable to resettle residents who request it, ultimately forcing the state to resettle residents despite making financial losses. Secondly, township governments in charge of pacifying resident resistance sometimes act on behalf of residents if their interests overlap such as demanding for more investments into the area. Finally, resettlement has cultivated a longer-term dependence of residents on Lingang’s development. However, the state’s promise of sharing the prosperity of growth also lends legitimacy to residents to demand provisions of public amenities and state investments. Through Lingang, I show that the challenge for Chinese the state is to ensure continued economic growth to fund its social stability and that urban development is also driven by non-economic objectives which to some extent enables substantive community engagement albeit unequally and with major caveats.