The Rise of the Governance State

Based on the changes in the governance of social organizations in China since the new century and the state formation resulting from these changes,this paper generalizes the Chinese state form as a Governance State.It argues that China's governance state is centered on the performance-based provision of public goods and services,grounded in the value of livelihood politics,characterized by an integrated power structure (centralization) and cooperative decentralization,and operationalized through bureaucratic mechanisms and policy processes,and with long-term stability.The paper argues that the rise of the governance state in modern China is not a teleological process but rather a historical one in which intrinsic elements of traditional China have gradually reintegrated into modern Chinese politics.