Abstract: Since 1979, social protection in China has undergone fundamental institutional transformations. This presentation provides an overview of the state of the literature on social policy in the PRC, the institutional change which has characterized social protection in the reform period, and an outlook on future developments. Social protection under the planned economy was characterized […]

Abstract: Despite playing a key contributory role in China’s recent economic reforms and the Party’s regime durability, there has been a noted reduction in central-level policy experimentation under Xi Jinping’s administration. Recent studies have further noted an empirical reduction in policy innovation at the subnational level, and question whether local officials will continue to experiment […]

Abstract: This lecture will examine how social structures of power, such as patriarchal power, depend on the vicissitudes of human agency to implement their principles, opening them up to subtle shifts and reconfigurations in social practice (Anthony Giddens, Pierre Bourdieu). Traditional religiosities, whether Christian, Islamic, Buddhist, or others, are often seen to produce conservative agents […]

Abstract: As numerous commentators have pointed out, China is the first country in the world to experience an ageing population without first having reached developed country status. China is indeed ‘growing old before it grows rich,’ but the meanings and significance of this demographic event are not clear. A substantial body of scholarship, generally public […]