Scalar tensions and the missing link crisis in China’s National Trunk Highway System

ABSTRACT

Studies of scalar politics have acknowledged the hierarchical nature of inter-scalar state agent relations as a source of tensions for infrastructural failure. Few scholarly inquiries have given equal emphasis to the vertical and horizontal power relations, as well as the interplay of scalar verticality and horizontality which frames the power topologies in the regulation of infrastructural development. Informed by a political assemblage approach, this article explores the entanglement of scalar tensions and missing link crisis in China by “blending” the verticality and horizontality of scalar power geometries into a relationalized analytical framework. Using a data set of missing links in China’s National Trunk Highway System (NTHS), this article estimates the relational effect of inter-scalar and intra-scalar intergovernmental linkages on the territorial pattern of missing links in the NTHS through a gravitational spatial interaction model, which contributes to the scholarship of missing links through the methodological crossover of spatial econometric modeling and scale theories. Results indicate the following: vertically, the involvement of provincial governments in the realization of the NTHS link increases the probability of a missing link; whereas horizontally, the presence of a (vice-)provincial city government heightens the risk of a missing link.

KEYWORDS:

• Missing links
• scalar politics
• infrastructure development
• spatial interaction model
• political assemblage
• China

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Professor Becky P. Y. Loo and Dr. Jiangping Zhou from The University of Hong Kong, Professor Jos Arts from the University of Groningen, as well as the three anonymous reviewers for their insightful and valuable comments and suggestions. We would also like to thank Dr. Calvin King Lam Chung from the editorial board of Asian Geographer for his wholehearted dedication to the copyediting of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study is funded by Joint Programming Initiative (JPI) Urban Europe and National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (Project No. 71961137003).