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-early 2010s) to empirically demonstrate the model of Directed Improvisation, showing how the Chinese leadership steered development without exercising precise control in a highly complex, regionally diverse, and uncertain environment. Across regions and stages of development, central authorities outlined broad directions and goals, set targets, defined boundaries, and rewarded success, while local governments improvised solutions using local resources, producing a diverse and evolving array of development pathways rather than a single monolithic “China model.”

Sources

Primary empirical demonstration:

• Ang, Yuen Yuen. How China Escaped the Poverty Trap (2016), Chapter 5.

Policy-facing synthesis and clarification:

• Ang, Yuen Yuen. “The Real China Model.” Foreign Affairs (2018).

• Ang, Yuen Yuen. “Normatively Weak Institutions Can Be Functionally Strong.” OECD Development Matters (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 regionally diverse and evolving development paths within the country

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.”

— Ang, How China Escaped the Poverty Trap (2016), p. 17

“Since 1978, the most consistent feature of China’s development has been the governing system that has allowed continuous change to emerge, often in unexpected ways. This adaptive system… is what I call ‘directed improvisation.’”

“Under Deng Xiaoping, Beijing became a director, not a dictator… Beijing was highly involved in setting boundaries, initiating reforms across policy areas that complemented one another, and defining the criteria of bureaucratic success.”
— Ang, The Real China Model, Foreign Affairs (2018)

“Under directed improvisation, China achieved a distinct pattern of development over the past decades: diverse solutions tailored to local conditions and stages of development. Far from being monolithic, a stunning variety of ‘China models’ exists within China, varying across regions and evolving over time.”

— Ang, Normatively Weak Institutions Can Be Functionally Strong (2018)

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Concept Constellation

Across Ang’s work, Directed Improvisation: China as Demonstration consistently co-appears with the following concepts and analytic themes:

• Influence rather than control

• Uncertainty vs. risk

• Variation, selection, niche creation

• Coevolutionary Development: China as Demonstration

• Market-building vs. market-preserving

• Regional variation and evolution / diverse solutions varying across regions and evolving over time / Many “China Models” within China