Social Transformation and State Governance in China: Theory, Path, and Policy Process (China Academic Library)

This volume is a selection of Chinese political scholar Xianglin Xu’s published works spanning nearly 20 years of research that explore and discuss the socio-economic transition in China under state political reform. Contextualized within the decades following the 80s, the author analyzes patterns observed from empirical studies, and breaks down the underlining reasoning, conditions and functionalities behind the incremental reform policies pushed forward by the Party and government.

The collection is broken up into four sections: the first provides a general framework and theoretical / historical introduction to social transition research in the case of China; the second section discusses the underpinning logic behind political reform in China and practical concerns; the third section follows with discussions on reform policy practices within China including application and trajectory; the final section concludes with an analysis of reform within state institutional infrastructure and policy innovation.

Xu Xianglin, a professor, Ph.D supervisor  and vice president  in School of Government of Peking University. He was born in 1955 in Xiangxiang City, Hunan Province. In 1982, he received his Bachelor’s Degree in Laws from the School of International  Studies of Peking University and became a teacher there. In 1987, he went to study in University of California, Irvine, under the supervision of David Easton, an American expert in Politics, and received his Doctorate in Politics in 1995. He took on teaching in Peking University in 1996, gave lectures like “Politics and Government Process in China”, “Chinese Political and Economic System Reform”, “Analysis of Public Policy”, etc. His research mainly focus on Comparative Politics, Chinese government and politics, and public policy.