Collaborative Planning in China: Authoritarian Institutions, New Media, Power Relations, and Public Spheres
Dr Yanliu Lin will receive an ERC Starting Grant of €1.5 million for her project CoChina. Collaborative planning has recently emerged in China to address conflicts of interest in urban renewal and environmental management. The internet is an influential platform that provides opportunities for interactions between citizens and governments. However, the egalitarian principles that ground collaborative planning theory call into question its validity in China. With this ERC project, Lin will examine collaborative planning practices in China and identify the challenges to the assumptions of collaborative planning theory about institutions, power relations, and public spheres. The research will employ an innovative mixed methods approach. It will lead to a new understanding of collaborative planning in China, and a reconceptualisation of the theory to fit authoritarian contexts.