Directed Improvisation: China as Demonstration
Term
Directed Improvisation: China as Demonstration
Idea level
Application: Development
Definition
Directed Improvisation: China as Demonstration refers to Yuen Yuen Ang’s use of reform-era China (1980s-2012) to empirically demonstrate the model of Directed Improvisation: a paradoxical mixture of top-down direction by the central government and bottom-up improvisation among local governments and entrepreneurs, producing a variety of subnational coevolutionary paths, rather than a single, fixed “China model.”
Mechanisms
☐ Variation: Generate diverse alternatives within broad priorities and prohibitions
☐ Selection: Clearly define and reward performance; identify and scale what works
☐ Niche creation: Encourage complementarities among unequal regions
☐ Coevolution: Directed improvisation enabled state-market coevolution on a national scale
Sources
Primary empirical demonstration:
Ang, Yuen Yuen. How China Escaped the Poverty Trap (2016), especially Chapter 2 “Directed Improvisation”
Policy-facing synthesis:
Ang, Yuen Yuen. “The Real China Model.” Foreign Affairs (2018).
Genealogy
[Paradigm] AIM (Adaptive, Inclusive, Moral Political Economy)
→ [Pillar] Adaptive Political Economy (APE)
→ [Concept] Influence vs. Control
→ [Model] Directed Improvisation
→ [Application: Development] China as key demonstration site of directed improvisation, producing diverse development paths varying across regions and evolving over time
Quotes
“Condensing various elements of its adaptive approach into a pithy maxim, I call it directed improvisation. Central reformers direct; local state agents improvise. The center does not direct by precisely dictating what local agents must do. Instead, it directs by tackling the problems of adaptation earlier outlined: authorizing yet delimiting the boundaries of localization (variation), clearly defining and rewarding bureaucratic success (selection), and encouraging mutual exchanges between highly unequal regions (niche creation). Within these centrally drawn parameters, local authorities improvise a variety of solutions to locally specific and ever-changing problems. It is this paradoxical mixture of top-down direction and bottom-up improvisation that lays the foundation for coevolutionary processes of radical change.”
“Generalizable from China’s market reforms are… the strategies of directing improvisation, not the particular solutions that were improvised to solve particular problems at various times and places… Numerous organizations share similar challenges of improvising with existing resources and making adaptation work.”
— Ang, How China Escaped the Poverty Trap (2016), Introduction (p. 17)
“These two chapters have identified two meta-institutions that steer and motivate local improvisation… With this in mind, we are now ready to move from the national perspective to the local levels. How do local officials adapt central goals of development to varied conditions in different parts of China and over time? We will unpack the coevolutionary path of a city in Fujian province to see how states and markets mutually adapted and transformed since reforms again.”
— Ang, How China Escaped the Poverty Trap (2016), Chapter 4 (p. 137)
“Under Deng, Beijing became a director, not a dictator. Instead of trying to command their way to rapid industrialization and growth, reformers focused on creating the right conditions for lower-level officials to kick-start development in their own communities using local resources… Although the Chinese leadership did not grant formal political rights to civil society, these changes liberated China’s vast civil service, which is as populous as a midsize country, to take initiative and innovate.”
— Ang, The Real China Model (2018)
Concept Constellation
Across Ang’s work, Directed Improvisation: China as Demonstration consistently co-appears with the following concepts and analytic themes:
High-level concept: Influence vs. Control
Generic model of Directed Improvisation (see also application in USA)
Coevolutionary Development: China as Demonstration (enabled by directed improvisation)
Many “China Models” within China
Media and Public Impact (Selected)
Ang, Yuen Yuen. (2018) “The Real China Model: What Other Developing Countries Should Learn from China.” UNDP-Cambodia. 23 Aug 2018. (See UN press release for video lecture and slides)
Ang, Yuen Yuen. (2024) “Let Many China Models Bloom,” INET Video Lecture.
Related Descriptive Phrases (Non-Canonical)
These phrases are commonly used to describe aspects of “Directed Improvisation: China” when the keyword is not used.
Diverse developmental paths / diverse solutions varying across regions and evolving over time
Endogenous state-market feedback / recursive feedback loops / pragmatic adaptive coevolution
A China model without a model / lack of well-defined China model / China fits every model