Sabrina Habich's book examines local implementation of dam-induced resettlement policies in response to the Nuozhadu dam in Yunnan. Nuozhadu is one of a cascade of dams being built on the Lancang river; approximately 46,000 people were resettled as a result of its construction. The book focuses on the resettlement process in Pu'er county where, between 2005 and 2012, households were resettled from one mountain village on the Lancang river to two existing villages 200 kilometres away on the plains near the urban centre of Pu'er. The author uses a case study approach, drawing on substantial fieldwork during which 90 semi-structured interviews with resettled households, local officials and other actors were conducted. This primary data is supplemented by secondary data on resettlement policies and local statistics.
The author uses this case study of resettlement policy implementation as a lens to consider changes in state–society relations, particularly the relations between local communities and the local state. She argues that bureaucratic structures, power relations and changes to resettlement policy severely limit the agency of the local state and result in new forms of state–society relations. As such, existing conceptual frameworks such as selective or effective policy implementation cannot really explain local government behaviour: in dam-induced resettlement the local state has little room to manoeuvre (resettlement plans are fixed at the provincial level), but at the same time must respond to the growing agency of local communities and the risk of social unrest. This is described by the author as fragmented mediation under hierarchy.
The book is particularly valuable in its examination of the structure of China's resettlement bureaucracy, the types of actors involved and the reforms to dam-induced resettlement policy and regulations. It outlines the introduction of more socially-oriented resettlement policies in 2006, partly influenced by the World Bank, and considers the respective roles of each level of government in the resettlement process. Of particular interest is the growing role of large semi-state hydropower corporations and their subsidiaries, which have become deeply embedded in the planning and supervision of dam-related resettlement.
A further strength of the book is the author's willingness to delve into how and why outcomes differ for different groups of resettlers. Lengthy bargaining efforts, including carefully staged protests, and increased access to information resulted in significant gains for some households, while others were less successful. This is a much more nuanced approach to the “society” in state–society relations than is typical of studies of land acquisition and resettlement. Further, by not simply focusing on the question of how local government implementation differs from central government policy intentions, the reader gets a much more detailed understanding of how the local state functions, and how it interacts with and is shaped by those affected by resettlement policies and procedures.
There are two things missing from the analysis. The first is a detailed consideration of the other types of resettlement that occur in China (and that affect much larger numbers of people), and how this policy environment may differ from dam-induced resettlements. In the past decade millions of people have been affected by resettlement for poverty alleviation and resettlement for ecological protection, receiving much lower compensation payments and with none of the long-term compensation mechanisms that can be drawn from large hydropower projects. A growing body of literature documents these resettlements, which the author does not address. In these cases, different regulations apply, the make-up of actors is not the same, local governments face different constraints, and communities have far less leverage. How should we think about the local state and about state–society relations in these instances? Does fragmented mediation under hierarchy still apply? The second is some basic statistics on the households before and after resettlement (i.e. income, expenditure, land, crops, housing), which would give the reader a better sense of resettlement impacts and the extent to which the “move migrants out, let them have a stable lifestyle, and give them the ability to become rich” guideline (p. 135) has actually been achieved. Land availability is clearly a huge constraint on post-resettlement livelihoods in Pu'er, but we do not really get a clear picture of these livelihoods.
Despite these gaps this book makes a significant contribution to the state–society relations literature and to the resettlement literature. While it is perhaps less suited to undergraduate teaching, it will find an audience amongst scholars and postgraduate students of Chinese politics, resettlement, water governance and rural development.
