The Political Logic of Economic Reform in ChinaIn the past decade, China was able to carry out economic reform without political reform, while the Soviet Union attempted the opposite strategy. How did China succeed at economic market reform without changing communist rule? Susan Shirk shows that Chinese communist political institutions are more flexible and less centralized than their Soviet counterparts were. Shirk pioneers a rational choice institutional approach to analyze policy-making in a non-democratic authoritarian country and to explain the history of Chinese market reforms from 1979 to the present. Drawing on extensive interviews with high-level Chinese officials, she pieces together detailed histories of economic reform policy decisions and shows how the political logic of Chinese communist institutions shaped those decisions. Combining theoretical ambition with the flavor of on-the-ground policy-making in Beijing, this book is a major contribution to the study of reform in China and other communist countries. |
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Contents
3 | |
The Prereform Chinese Economy and the Decision to Initiate Market Reforms | 23 |
CHINESE POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS | 53 |
Authority Relations The Communist Party and the Government | 55 |
Leadership Incentives Political Succession and Reciprocal Accountability | 70 |
Bargaining Arena The Government Bureaucracy | 92 |
Who Is Enfranchised in the Policymaking Process? | 107 |
Decision Rules Delegation by Consensus | 116 |
Playing to the Provinces Fiscal Decentralization and the Politics of Reform | 149 |
Creating Vested Interests in Reform Industrial Reform Takeoff 197881 | 197 |
Leadership Succession and Policy Conflict The Choice Between Profit Contracting and Substituting TaxforProfit 198283 | 221 |
Building Bureaucratic Consensus Formulating the TaxforProfit Policy 198384 | 245 |
The Power of Particularism Abortive Price Reform and the Revival of Profit Contracting 198588 | 280 |
CONCLUSION | 331 |
The Political Lessons of Economic Reform in China | 333 |
Bibliography | 351 |
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Common terms and phrases
According adjustment administrative agencies agricultural allowed approved author's interviews authority bargaining base Beijing benefits build bureau bureaucratic called capital Central Committee Chen China Chinese Chinese economic reform cities collective Commission communist competition conference Congress consensus conservative continued contracting Council created decentralization decision delegation Deng Xiaoping economic reform economists enterprises experiments factories favored firms fiscal fixed foreign funds give groups growth heavy industry implemented important improve incentives income increased institutions interests investment issue leadership less localities managers materials meeting ment method ministries officials organizations output party leaders percent Politburo political position preferences Press price reform problem production profit-contracting profits promoted proposed provinces rates reform policies regions responsibility retained revenues rules secretary sector share shift Soviet Union subordinate succession tax-for-profit tion yuan Zhao Ziyang
Popular passages
Page 6 - As the Chinese economists put it, Deng Xiaoping and his reformist lieutenants, Zhao Ziyang and Hu Yaobang, pushed against the stone wall of the Chinese bureaucracy. Where they found loose stones, they pushed through; when stones would not move, they did not waste energy pushing