Dance with Glauthoritarian Urbanization: An Entrepreneurial Megacity in the Making through the Lenses of Civic Organizations
Abstract
How do formal civic organizations shape—and how are they shaped by—the production of urban space? This article brings place-oriented civil society research into conversation with critical urban studies through the case of Shenzhen. Survey, interview, and social media data from a random sample of nonprofits show how the municipal government’s joint promotion of global capitalism and authoritarian rule structures the physical, social, and digital spaces in which civic organizations form and operate. Nonprofits, in turn, mediate negotiations among the local state, market actors, and urban residents, helping create, transform, and reproduce unequal urban space in China’s leading entrepreneurial megacity.
Summary
Research Question
What role do formal civic organizations play in entrepreneurial city-making when a municipal government promotes both global competitiveness and authoritarian governance?
Main Argument and Findings
Shenzhen’s global-capitalist and authoritarian development agenda shapes where and how nonprofits operate. Civic organizations are not simply controlled by the city or independent from it: they mediate among state, market, and residents and thereby participate in producing unequal physical, social, and digital urban space.
Data and Methods
Survey, interview, and social media data from a random sample of nonprofit organizations in Shenzhen.
Contribution
The article develops “glauthoritarian urbanization” to connect global capitalism, authoritarian governance, and civic organization. It shows why nonprofits must be treated as active participants in urban development rather than as actors outside the process of city-making.
Keywords
glauthoritarian urbanization · civic organizations · entrepreneurial city · global capitalism · authoritarian governance · urban inequality · urban space · Shenzhen