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Social assessment for projects in China is an important emerging field. This collection of essays - from authors whose formative work has influenced the policies that shape practice in development-affected communities - locates recent Chinese experience of the development of social assessment practices (including in displacement and resettlement) in a historical and comparative perspective. Contributors - social scientists employed by international development banks, national government agencies, and sub-contracting groups - examine projects from a practitioner's perspective. Real-life experiences are presented as case-specific praxis, theoretically informed insight, and pragmatic lessons-learned, grounded in the history of this field of development practice. They reflect on work where economic determinism reigns supreme, yet project failure or success often hinges upon sociopolitical and cultural factors.

The world seems to have recently discovered India and China as major players in Asia, and political and economic connections between the two countries are rapidly growing.Beyond the fashionable phenomenon, the two countries have much in common and many shared experiences.

Today opponents of large-scale dam projects in China, rather than being greeted with indifference or repression, are part of the hydropower policymaking process itself. What accounts for this dramatic change in this critical policy area surrounding China's insatiable quest for energy? InChina's Water Warriors, Andrew C. Mertha argues that as China has become increasingly market driven, decentralized, and politically heterogeneous, the control and management of water has transformed from an unquestioned economic imperative to a lightning rod of bureaucratic infighting, societal opposition, and open protest. Although bargaining has always been present in Chinese politics, more recently the media, nongovernmental organizations, and other activists-actors hitherto denied a seat at the table-have emerged as serious players in the policy-making process. Drawing from extensive field research in some of the most remote parts of Southwest China,China's Water Warriorscontains rich narratives of the widespread opposition to dams in Pubugou and Dujiangyan in Sichuan province and the Nu River Project in Yunnan province. Mertha concludes that the impact and occasional success of such grassroots movements and policy activism signal a marked change in China's domestic politics. He questions democratization as the only, or even the most illuminating, indicator of political liberalization in China, instead offering an informed and hopeful picture of a growing pluralization of the Chinese policy process as exemplified by hydropower politics. For the 2010 paperback edition, Mertha tests his conclusions against events in China since 2008, including the Olympics, the devastating 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, and the Uighar and Tibetan protests of 2008 and 2009.

Implementing national policies is a crucial function of the local Chinese bureaucracy and an indispensable part of Beijing's overall state capacity. Yet the specifics of how and why local officials interpret and implement such policies have so far escaped detailed attention. In Redeveloping China’s Villages in the Twenty-First Century, Lior Rosenberg fills this gap by examining the national Village Redevelopment Program, one of China’s most significant policies of recent decades to promote rural change. Based on Rosenberg’s on-site research, Redeveloping China’s Villages in the Twenty-First Century investigates the Village Redevelopment Program’s implementation in both the industrialised county of Chenggu, in Shandong province, and the predominantly agricultural county of Beian, in Anhui province. At the book’s heart is a puzzle: the program was supposed to prioritise poorer villages, but in both Chenggu and Beian—despite being carried out in surprisingly divergent ways—it has subsidised improved infrastructure and services in already industrialised and prosperous villages, while leaving behind poorer ones. In explaining this outcome, Rosenberg elaborates on the larger economic, political and social environment in which Chinese local officials operate, as well as the pressures they face from above. He analyses the dual role played by higher-level authorities, as both policy enablers and thwarters in a system that sanctifies commandism but where the distinction between principals and agents is blurred.

This important volume provides a source of information on the key issues, including constraints and capacity building, necessary to implement participatory approaches in China today. A wealth of case studies are provided by principal Chinese academics and practitioners in forestry, natural resource management, rural development, irrigation and poverty alleviation. At the core, the book is about strengthening local government as a key player in the development of participatory initiatives. It is an invaluable text for development practitioners, donors, researchers and students seeking to understand the opportunities and constraints for participation in China, and for those working to institutionalize participatory processes in a complex rural context.

This book seeks to demonstrate the role of public policy in support of equitable and inclusive development. The achievement of this overarching goal rests on an assumption that development does not happen by chance or by accident, but rather, through the deliberate application of analytical tools which public policy is able to provide. Set within an Asian context, the book emphasizes the role of public policy in reducing poverty, eliminating deprivation, promoting equity, and ensuring social justice. 　 The book likewise aims to provide an argument for the developmental role of the state — one which has been the subject of a long-standing debate among development scholars. In addition, the book accounts for the role of civil society organizations, particularly their involvement in multi-stakeholder participation. Through different case studies, this book explains the outcome of public policy decisions as combinations of efforts among government and civil society actors, to ensure the creation of the most optimal public good. Finally, the book takes a comparative perspective, i.e., there are cases that directly or indirectly implicate the regional character of public policies that result in the creation and distribution of regional public goods. Foreword 1. Opening Laos: The Nam Theun 2 Hydropower Project 2. The Congress for People’s Agrarian Reform in the Philippines 3. New Kid on the Block: Chinese Development Assistance in Asia 4. Lessons in Regional Economic Cooperation: The Case of the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) 5. Whither the Trees and the Forests? The Task Force Total Commercial Log Ban in the Philippines 6. Protecting the Domestic Worker: The Case of Sri Lanka 7. Myanmar’s Development: An Opportunity for Genuine Transformation 8. Concluding Chapter ‘ This book provides a wealth of information and insights about planning and development projects in Southeast Asia. It carefully documents how South Eastern governments seek to align with international development guidelines as well as with local contingencies.　 Such efforts are always institutionally intricate and politically laden. The chapter on the Nam Theun hydroproject in Laos analyzes in detail the foreseen negative impacts and the mitigation measures, including the fate of numerous consultation processes. Another chapter traces the agrarian reform actions in The Philippines and focuses on the intriguing coalition of the Congress for a People’s Agrarian Reform. While it failed in the short term due to internal and external impediments, its legacy provides indicators for the long term. ’ — Harro van Lente, Socrates Professor Philosophy of Sustainable Development, ICIS, Faculty of Humanities & Sciences of Maastricht University Teresita Cruz-del Rosario has a background in Sociology, Social Anthropology and Public Policy from Boston College, Harvard University, and New York University. Her research interests are on comparative social movements in Southeast Asia, migration, sustainable development, and land grabs.

A trend toward decentralisation has meant that sub-national governments increasingly find themselves responsible for providing a host of public goods and services. Rarely, however, can they \"go it alone\". Co-ordination among levels of government is imperative. This book offers a unique analytic framework for assessing multi-level governance arrangements, which is subsequently applied to five case studies of regional development policy: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. The book reveals the importance of contractual arrangements for customised management of interdependencies, for clarifying responsibilities among actors, for dialogue, and for learning.