Policy entrepreneur and social policy innovation in China

Zhu, Yapeng; Xiao, Diwen

doi:10.1186/s40711-015-0012-z

Cited by 18 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 33 publications

(38 reference statements)

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“…Since experimentalist governance offers more spaces for bureaucratic discretion than law-based democracies (Heilmann, 2008), policy entrepreneurs– bureaucrats who want to try novel approaches–became critical (Teets, 2015; Zhu and Xiao, 2015). Under the experimentation regime, policy entrepreneurs at the national level have to secure permission and resources from higher leaders to set up local pilot sites to demonstrate the effectiveness of their approach.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Qujing (取经) as policy mobility with Chinese characteristics: A case study of ultralow-energy building policy in China

Zhou

2020

Environ Plan A

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This article introduces the concept and practice of qujing as a Chinese state-organized form of policy mobility. The term qujing originates in the journey of a Tang Dynasty monk Xuanzang who brought Buddhism’s sutras from India to China in the 7th century; qujing has been appropriated by modern Chinese leaders to promote learning from the experiences of other regions. In post-reform China, qujing has become routinized within the Chinese bureaucracy as an integral step in its distinctive experimentalist governance. By bringing insights from the literature of China’s policy experimentation to situate trans-local learning, I challenge the disproportionate attention the policy mobility literature has paid to local and transnational actors in mobilizing policies under neoliberalism. Instead, I locate the origins, agency, and knowledge mutation of Chinese qujing within the multi-scalar policy experimentation protocols of China’s authoritarian regime. This article contrasts qujing with generalized patterns of policy mobility in the existing literature, thereby decentering political mobility research from more familiar western political contexts and actors. Using multi-year interviews and official documents, I trace China’s introduction of ultralow-energy passive building from Germany as a case-study to show the relationships between foreign learning ( qujing), local experimentation, and policy making in greening China’s built environment.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Qujing (取经) as policy mobility with Chinese characteristics: A case study of ultralow-energy building policy in China

Zhou

2020

Environ Plan A

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“…The mushrooming scholarship of the past decade has found that authoritarian states deliver 9 Ngok andHuang 2014. 10 Zhu, Yapeng, andXiao 2015;Zhu, Xufeng, and Zhao 2018;He 2018. 11 Encouraged by the operation of dibao in the cities, from 2004 the Chinese government started to roll out a similar programme in the countryside.…”

Section: The Political Economy Of Social Policymaking In Chinamentioning

confidence: 99%

Local Policy Discretion in Social Welfare: Explaining Subnational Variations in China's De Facto Urban Poverty Line

Guo

Wang

2021

The China Quarterly

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How do subnational agents exercise policy discretion in the social welfare sphere? To what extent do they do so as a result of various bureaucratic and fiscal incentives? The literature has documented several explanatory frameworks in the context of China that predominantly focus on the realm of developmental policies. Owing to the salient characteristics of the social policy arena, local adaptation of centrally designed policies may operate on distinctive logics. This study synthesizes the recent scholarship on subnational social policymaking and explains the significant interregional disparities in China's de facto urban poverty line – the eligibility standard of the urban minimum livelihood guarantee scheme, or dibao. Five research hypotheses are formulated for empirical examination: fiscal power effect, population effect, fiscal dependency effect, province effect and neighbour effect. Quantitative analysis of provincial-level panel data largely endorses the hypotheses. The remarkable subnational variations in dibao standards are explained by a salient constellation of fiscal and political factors that are embedded within the country's complex intergovernmental relations and fiscal arrangements. Both a race-to-the-top and a race-to-the-bottom may be fostered by distinctive mechanisms. The unique role of provincial governments as intermediary agents within China's political apparatus is illuminated in the social policy arena.

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“…Previous works demonstrate that the bottom-up diffusion of successful government practices from local to central government is a pervasive feature of Chinese policymaking (Hammond, 2013; Zhu, 2012, 2013). These studies focus on issue areas such as urban income policy (Hammond, 2013), local housing (Zhu, 2012), and municipal health insurance systems (Zhu and Xiao, 2015). As these policy areas are inherently regional in nature, policy entrepreneurship from local governments is thus hardly surprising.…”

Section: Toward a Conception Of State-led Gfnsmentioning

confidence: 99%

China’s integration into the global financial system

Töpfer

2018

Dialogues in Human Geography

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This article critically reviews theories of global economic networks and refines their application to China’s state-controlled financial sector. Current approaches view global production networks and global financial networks (GFNs) through an agency focus on inter-firm relations and a structural emphasis on neoliberal forces. This market-driven perspective exposes several shortcomings when it comes to understanding the governance of GFNs in China. In the Chinese context, these networks are characterized by complex bargaining that bridges different levels of the Chinese party-state and corporate interests. This article exploits the theoretical synergies between economic geography and theories of Chinese elite politics and institutional change to develop a politically sensitive reading of GFNs. It identifies channels through which multilevel bargaining in the Chinese party-state shapes the competitive positions of firms. By integrating recent findings on Chinese cross-border finance, the article develops an empirically grounded theoretical approach of GFNs ‘with Chinese characteristics’. This opens up a promising research agenda in the GFN literature on the role of the state as an architect and entrepreneur behind GFNs and the outcomes they produce.

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Policy entrepreneur and social policy innovation in China

Cited by 18 publications

References 33 publications

Qujing (取经) as policy mobility with Chinese characteristics: A case study of ultralow-energy building policy in China

Qujing (取经) as policy mobility with Chinese characteristics: A case study of ultralow-energy building policy in China

Local Policy Discretion in Social Welfare: Explaining Subnational Variations in China's De Facto Urban Poverty Line

China’s integration into the global financial system

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