“State Involution” Revisited: An Analysis of the Reformulation of Townships in Huangyan County, Zhejiang, 1946–1947

The theory of “state involution,” first proposed by Prasenjit Duara, has been used to explain the expansion of power of the modern Chinese state. However, some scholars argue, on the basis of regional studies, that the concept of state involution was at most only applicable to North China and did not pertain to the practice of the Guomindang regime, which had built a complete administrative system down to the grassroots level. In 1946, Zhejiang province decided to reduce the number of townships to cut fiscal expenditures. With Huangyan county as a regional case, we investigate the implementation of the policy of reducing the number of townships and find that the theory of state involution is still applicable to explaining grassroots politics in Zhejiang under the Guomindang, showing that the theory has a wider range of applicability than some scholars believe. The development of state involution in this period is closely related to the governance capacity and patterns of the Guomindang regime at the grassroots level. It is thus inappropriate to see just the establishment and expansion of a grassroots administrative system as a sign that state involution had been overcome.