Understanding Local Agency in China’s Policy Reform

“The meticulously researched case studies in this book reveal the nuance and complexity of Chinese politics and the modern authoritarian welfare state. Xiaoye She challenges the outdated notion of an unchanging authoritarian welfare state that is all too often treated as an afterthought. Her refreshing focus on sub-national politics speaks to pressing debates about economic development paradigms. This is a must-read for anyone who wants to better understand the realities of Chinese politics today, and authoritarian regimes more broadly.”

– Sarah Wilson Sokhey, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Colorado Boulder, USA

This book challenges the common perception or assumption that greater state intervention and re-centralization will result in convergence towards a more equitable and inclusive growth model in China. Instead of asking whether local agency matters, this project examines the conditions and latitude of local agency under initial decentralization followed by increasing top-down re-centralization. The central argument is that in response to common policy directives and pressures from above, disparities in local growth strategies have interacted with political institutions in generating “embedded” sub-national welfare mix models, with varying articulations of state, market, community, and family in Chinese welfare production. The bottom-up feedback effects from these embedded models have somewhat offset growing top-down pressure for re-centralization, contributing to persistent sub-national variations. This author contributes to a growing literature of comparative political economy that seeks to examine the political and economic logics of social policy in non-western and authoritarian political systems.

Xiaoye Sheis Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science at California State University San Marcos, USA.