Cultural Policy Formation and State-Society Relations: Culture-led Urban Redevelopment of Enninglu in Guangzhou

Abstract

Using the Enninglu redevelopment project as a case, this article examines how local governments in China pacify urban protests, consolidate the political legitimacy of urban agendas, and re-regulate state-society relations through cultural policy-making. The Enninglu urban renewal project has experienced three waves of social resistance since 2006. Accordingly, the government has made three rounds of urban policy changes, successively incorporating heritage preservation policies, creative economy policies, and public participation policies in response to different social demands. The case of Enninglu illustrates that cultural city-making in China is not merely “state-led,” but is assembled in a process of conflict between the state and society at the local level. This article argues for bringing the perspective of “state-society relations” to the study of Asian cultural/creative cities and further proposes a “legitimacy framework” to conceptualize the mechanisms of urban cultural policy-making in the context of social resistance.