From Taxi to Didi: Voice and Balancing in the Industrial Transition

Abstract Based on four years of fieldwork, including 339 interviews across 21 cities, this paper provides the first-ever ethnographic account of the political economy behind the transition from traditional taxis to Didi-style ride-hailing in China. This paper makes two contributions to the literature. First, it investigates how the seemingly disadvantaged stakeholders of an old economy resisted the progress of the platform economy and why the different levels of the Chinese government, which are not subject to Western democratic accountability regimes, respond to the resistance. Second, it demonstrates the sophisticated and various approaches the Chinese government has taken in balancing the interests of the old taxi industry and the interests of the new economy. The Chinese government’s holistic approach in seeking a balance across different industries and achieving multiple goals at the same time differs from our conventional way of considering regulating online ride-hailing as an issue of compensation between the government and taxi license holders or an issue of legalization between the government and platforms such as Didi or Uber.