Actors in power networks: an institution framework of historic urban district renovation actors in China

Abstract

The powers, resources, motivations, and mindsets of actors play a critical role in shaping the conservation, renovation, and redevelopment of historic urban districts, as well as broader contemporary urban issues. Yet, understanding the roles of individuals and institutions remains challenging. Referring to bounded rationality hypothesis and Michael Mann’s theory of power networks, this paper proposes a comprehensive analytical framework to examine the actor-institution landscape. It offers a panoramic view of the intricate and often chaotic interconnections among key actors as well as their power resources, institutional affiliations, interrelations, and action logics. This framework is then applied to the case of historic urban district renovation in China, providing insights from an actor-institutionalist perspective, such as the imbalanced power distribution and party-state authority fragmentation.