Stepwise transition of urban entrepreneurialism in cross-boundary statecraft: A qualitative study of an enclave industrial park in Zhejiang province, China

This study examines the roles and ideologies of cross-boundary statecraft in the context of urban entrepreneurialism in multi-level bureaucratic China. Referring to comparative studies on city diplomacy, intrapreneurialism, and state entrepreneurialism, we conducted a case study of Quzhou Inno-Industrial Park (QIIP) (an enclave industrial park) in Zhejiang province to clarify the nature of territorial rationality in cross-boundary development. We thus found that entrepreneurial objectives were fulfilled through top-down politics, wherein roles played by the central, provincial, and municipal governments were differentiated in territorial expressions. First, the provincial government actualized central government initiatives by promulgating developmental agenda and distributing to municipalities under state entrepreneurialism. Second, municipalities forged independent territorial rationality to benefit bilateral development through city diplomacy when releasing cross-boundary cooperation schemes. Third, multiple governments have chosen speculative and experimental practices over passive compliance with allegiances through top-down bureaucratic dictates, thus fulfilling provincial developmental intentions within territorial incentives of local benefits. Overall, these findings reveal an arrangement that greatly differs from a fixed modality of urban entrepreneurialism, wherein cross-boundary statecraft exposes stepwise genres in a transitional spectrum of urban entrepreneurialism that reflects perceptions of multi-level bureaucratic China.