The public governance of epidemic outbreaks faces great uncertainty. Successful governance is only possible with a competent early warning system, which hinges upon efficient production, sharing, and use of relevant knowledge and information. In this process, functional scientific/professional communities are critical gatekeepers. Analyzing China's failed early warning for the COVID-19 outbreak, we show that an epidemic governance system dominated by bureaucratic forces is doomed to failure. In particular, we identify the lack of autonomy of scientific/professional communities-in this case, virologists, physicians, and epidemiologists-as one of the major contributing factors to the malfunction of the early warning system. Drawing upon the idea of community governance, we argue that only by empowering scientific/professional groups to exert efficient community governance can a state modernize its early warning system and perform better in combatting epidemics. ARTICLE HISTORY

No abstract

No abstract

During the pre-reform era, Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) operated not only as firms, but also as mini-welfare states, providing employees with lifetime employment, inexpensive housing, free health care, and pensions. Since China's market transition began in the late 1970s, however, SOEs have had to bear increasingly heavy burdens for welfare provisions to their employees. The steep increase in welfare spending has not only eroded the base of state revenue, but has also impeded further SOE reforms. To lighten welfare burdens upon SOEs and to remove institutional obstacles to marketization and privatization embedded in the existing welfare system, the Chinese state has imposed many welfare reforms aimed at shifting responsibilities for welfare provision from SOEs to a combination of government, enterprises, communities, and individuals. This article examines the belated welfare reforms in China's state sector and their impact upon the reform of SOEs. It finds that reform implementation has been sluggish. To achieve the policy goal of welfare reforms, high degrees of state autonomy and capacity are needed.

No abstract