Social Transformation in China and the Development of Social Assessment

Since the late 1990s, China has been pursuing a policy of economic expansion with extensive investment in large-scale infrastructure projects. The social side effects of these projects—such as involuntary resettlement—are but the tip of the iceberg of so-called externalities of economic transformation. This paper introduces the background and methodology of social assessment in China and argues that the assessment of social risks in development projects and programmes, undertaken as an integral part of a larger complex of future-oriented sustainability strategies in China, can be analysed as particular ‘governmental technologies’ in the sense of the Foucauldian school.