Governance Beyond Government: New Rural Elites and Households’ Responses to Rural Homestead Withdrawal in China

Withdrawal from rural homesteads (WRH) is of great significance for promoting sustainable utilization of rural land resources and inclusive rural development in transitional China. However, existing studies have largely overlooked endogenous factors embedded in rural communities, limiting a comprehensive understanding of WRH. To bridge this gap, this paper attempts to elucidate the role of new rural elites (NREs), individuals possessing relatively advantageous political, economic, or knowledge-based resources within rural communities, in households’ WRH responses. Drawing on the China Land Economic Survey, covering 1927 rural households across 52 villages in Jiangsu Province, we examine the association between NRE density and households’ WRH responses, assess the statistical pathways involving non-agricultural employment and social stability, and further explore whether collective capacity conditions this association. The findings indicate that higher NRE density is associated with more positive household responses to WRH, with positive associations observed for political, economic, and intellectual elites. The association also shows different patterns across livelihood strategies, geographic conditions, and governance contexts. Meanwhile, the KHB decomposition shows that the indirect components associated with non-agricultural employment and social stability account for 15.40% and 18.11% of the total association, respectively. Furthermore, collective capacity appears to have a positive moderating role in the association between NRE density and households’ WRH responses. This study further provides policy implications for the sustainable utilization of rural land resources and serves as a theoretical reference for similar local initiatives in developing countries.