Globalization and Public Sector Reform in China

摘要

This book offers a rich collection of new perspectives and insightful discussions and may serve as a useful reference source for readers who are interested in public-sector reform in China. The book argues that whilst Chinese policy makers and planners have learned from international examples, they have successfully modified them to suit Chinese conditions. What lies behind this argument is China's high degree of path dependency: public-sector reform in China is complicated by the size of the cadre workforce and the embeddedness of the cadre system in China's overall political system. Given their diversity and distance from the centre of power, local public-sector institutions, as defined by the editor, have exhibited differing degrees of receptivity to Western-influenced reform measures. It goes without saying that Chinese political exigencies and the vast geo-economic differences among regions in China have contributed to those differing reactions and strategies for coping with the reform demands. The book suggests that the influence of global governance ideas and practices is constrained by the authoritarian nature of China's party-state polity.