Authoritarian neoliberalization of water governance: the case of China’s South–North Water Transfer Project

China’s water governance not only involves highly technical interventions from the government but also reflects selected features of neoliberalization. Market and government interventions coexist, making the notion of ‘authoritarian neoliberalization’ a useful vantage point from which to understand water governance in China. The paper assesses the practices of water governance from the perspective of authoritarian neoliberalization by using the case of China’s South–North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP). First, China’s water governance practices contain elements of neoliberalization, including marketization, commodification and privatization. Second, its water governance also has authoritarian features that, combined with neoliberal elements, form an authoritarian neoliberalization that is a selective and adaptable expression of neoliberalism. Third, the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) claims that effective water governance is a manifestation of its care for people’s well-being and is, therefore, a source of the political legitimacy of the CPC. Nonetheless, authoritarian neoliberalization is officially regarded as merely a useful, practical instrument rather than an ideology to be pursued. The interpretation of authoritarian neoliberalization in this paper’s case study of water governance in China’s SNWTP expands existing understandings of variegated neoliberalization.