Suchergebnisse

Why would authoritarian leaders expand social welfare provision in the absence of democratization? How do authoritarian leaders design and enforce social welfare expansion in a decentralized multilevel governance setting? This book identifies the trade-off authoritarian leaders face in social welfare provision: effectively balancing coverage and benefits between elites and masses in order to maximize the regime's survival prospects. Using government documents, field interviews, survey data, and government statistics about Chinese social health insurance, this book reveals that Chinese authoritarian leaders attempt to manage the distributive trade-off by a "stratified expansion" strategy, establishing an expansive yet stratified social health insurance system to perpetuate a particularly privileged program for the elites while building an essentially modest health provision for the masses.

Introduction -- Theory of stratified expansion of social welfare -- Overview of China's social health insurance -- The center's distributive strategy and fund allocation -- Local motivation and distributive choices -- Understanding subnational variation in Chinese social health insurance -- Who gets what, when and how from Chinese social health insurance expansion? -- Conclusion.

Why would authoritarian leaders expand social welfare provision in the absence of democratization? How do authoritarian leaders design and enforce social welfare expansion in a decentralized multilevel governance setting? This book identifies the trade-off authoritarian leaders face in social welfare provision: effectively balancing coverage and benefits between elites and masses in order to maximize the regime's survival prospects. Using government documents, field interviews, survey data, and government statistics about Chinese social health insurance, this book reveals that Chinese authoritarian leaders attempt to manage the distributive trade-off by a "stratified expansion" strategy, establishing an expansive yet stratified social health insurance system to perpetuate a particularly privileged program for the elites while building an essentially modest health provision for the masses.

Much research on contentious politics focuses on the origins and dynamics of contention or the impact of contention on policy change. Although some studies have delved into the state reactions to contention, relatively little is known about the outcome or effectiveness of state responses, especially in non-democratic settings. This paper attempts to fill this gap and to uncover the policy feedback effect in non-democratic settings by studying the Chinese state's repression of violent incidents targeted at healthcare personnel and facilities (yinao). I argue that without comprehensive healthcare reforms to tackle the root causes of yinao, state repression of yinao generates unintended adverse outcomes, causing the doctor–patient relationship to deteriorate. Using the difference-in-differences method with China Family Panel Studies data for 2014 and 2016, I find that the criminalization of yinao diminishes public trust in doctors and confidence in hospitals' competence and instead increases public concerns about the healthcare system. (China Q / GIGA)

AbstractMuch research on contentious politics focuses on the origins and dynamics of contention or the impact of contention on policy change. Although some studies have delved into the state reactions to contention, relatively little is known about the outcome or effectiveness of state responses, especially in non-democratic settings. This paper attempts to fill this gap and to uncover the policy feedback effect in non-democratic settings by studying the Chinese state's repression of violent incidents targeted at healthcare personnel and facilities (yinao). I argue that without comprehensive healthcare reforms to tackle the root causes of yinao, state repression of yinao generates unintended adverse outcomes, causing the doctor–patient relationship to deteriorate. Using the difference-in-differences method with China Family Panel Studies data for 2014 and 2016, I find that the criminalization of yinao diminishes public trust in doctors and confidence in hospitals' competence and instead increases public concerns about the healthcare system.

ObjectiveSocial mobility plays an important role in stabilizing the political order. This article leverages China's hukou (household registration) reforms to examine the effects of state‐engineered social mobility on individuals' trust in the government.MethodsUsing China General Social Survey data for 2010 and entropy balancing for causal effects, this article provides empirical evidence for the attitudinal effects of social mobility at the individual level.ResultsIt finds that, first, individuals with the rural‐to‐urban hukou change are more likely to experience upward mobility, while individuals with the nonlocal‐to‐local hukou change are more pessimistic about their prospects of upward mobility; second, the rural‐to‐urban hukou change increases beneficiaries' trust in the central government, while the nonlocal‐to‐local hukou change increases beneficiaries' trust in the local government.ConclusionThe Chinese authoritarian regime's co‐optation tactic of engineering upward social mobility via the hukou reforms contributes to its performance‐based political legitimacy as it effectively bolsters individuals' trust in government.

With the rapid development of digital visualization technologies, the visual value of cultural heritage is increasingly important, giving rise to new ways to interpret the true worth of heritage. Taking the case of geomedia as an example, the article aims to reflect on how the visual culture in historic conservation has been changed by way of exploring the new significance of cultural heritage and its historic conservation in the light of geomedia. Based on my fieldtrip study of the historic conservation of the Old City in Shantou, southeastern China, I claim that historic conservation of the Old City, assisted by visual activism from the ground up, reveals its close relation to geographical sites through digital knowhow of geomedia. The interaction between image pixels and physical space contributes to the process of continuous creation and recreation of the heritage sites experienced by viewers/visitors; they are sensorially enticed to blend multiple interpretations into their physical experience in real time and construct multivalent situations for their embodied encounter. These heritage sites, once saturated with location-based visual enactment, help perform an effective role as a connective node to integrate different temporal periods as well as different groups of actors in their drive to better the city's future.

AbstractChina's social health insurance has expanded dramatically over the past decade. The increasing number of beneficiaries and benefits, however, has aggravated rather than mitigated regional disparities in health care. How can the regional variation in Chinese social health insurance be explained? This paper argues that the subnational variation in China's social health insurance results from the policy choices of central and local states. The central leadership, which is concerned about regime stability, delegates substantial discretionary authority to local state agents to accommodate diverse social needs and local circumstances. Local officials, who care about their political careers in the centralized personnel system, proactively design and implement social health insurance policy according to local situations such as fiscal resources and social risk. In specifying the rationale, conditions and patterns of regional variation in Chinese social health insurance, this paper addresses the general issue of how political leaders in an authoritarian regime respond to social needs.

China's social health insurance has expanded dramatically over the past decade. The increasing number of beneficiaries and benefits, however, has aggravated rather than mitigated regional disparities in health care. How can the regional variation in Chinese social health insurance be explained? This paper argues that the subnational variation in China's social health insurance results from the policy choices of central and local states. The central leadership, which is concerned about regime stability, delegates substantial discretionary authority to local state agents to accommodate diverse social needs and local circumstances. Local officials, who care about their political careers in the centralized personnel system, proactively design and implement social health insurance policy according to local situations such as fiscal resources and social risk. In specifying the rationale, conditions and patterns of regional variation in Chinese social health insurance, this paper addresses the general issue of how political leaders in an authoritarian regime respond to social needs. (China Q/GIGA)