After the introduction, in which the author defines and highlights important keywords such as “performative” or “good governance,” Chapter One analyses the internal complexity and diversity of the state by focusing on two essential components of the “governance cocktail” (p.
Part One consists of chapters One to Three, and Part Two of chapters Four and Five. The book has seven chapters divided into two parts. If much of the book focuses on theories of performativity in the Chinese context, it also offers new opportunities to reflect on the longevity of “performance legitimacy” despite ineffective policies and all the challenges to state capacity that have been extensively explored in the “fragmented authoritarian” literature (Lieberthal 1992 Mertha 2009). Ding’s deep insight into the everyday life of bureaucrats helps to analyse a certain type of performativity, namely as a symbolic achievement of good governance, which she defines as a broad national and societal consensus on how a given government should behave, and, ultimately on its sources, characteristics, alternatives, and consequences. On a theoretical level, Ding develops a subtle exploration of the intricacies between Goffman’s and Butler’s understanding of performativity to arrive at a nuanced but clear definition of performative governance, which she uses throughout the book to examine how state behaviour is and is not performative.
The author bases her definition of performativity on Merriam-Webster’s definition of performative as a means of image cultivation or the conveying of positive impressions, but also on Judith Butler’s understanding of performativity as language, gesture, and all sorts of symbolic social signs (p. The book illuminates the theatrical side of environmental governance in everyday Chinese politics. What Ding found instead, and this is the book’s central claim, is that high levels of “external scrutiny” by the public, coupled with the bureaucracy’s low logistical and/or political capacity, led bureaucrats not to deploy substantive governance, but to resort to performative governance, a “deployment of visual, verbal, and gestural symbols of good governance for the audience of citizens” (p. If they cannot meet people’s demands such as economic growth or a healthy environment, the regime could be undermined by popular dissatisfaction. In fact, it is recognised that authoritarian regimes like China often rely on performance legitimacy (Gilley 2009 Holbig and Gilley 20). Given the developed context of Lakeville, Ding anticipated that bureaucratic behaviour would be all the more apt to achieve substantive governance, a “governance that is geared towards delivering the fruits of effective rule that people demand and deserve” (p. It lends flesh and blood to a phrase I encountered repeatedly in China in the mid-2010s when interviewing environmental activists: “Well, there is the law, but then there is the application of the law in dealing with pollution cases.” Ding’s rich and in-depth observations transport readers back to the “airpocalypse” hailstorm and anti-corruption episodes of 2013, when she began her field research in Lakeville, a bustling and developed city on China’s central coast.
Iza Ding’s The Performative State is essential reading for those wanting to learn more about the less visible reality of the daily challenges faced by street-level environmental bureaucrats in China.
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