Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Welfare Provision under Authoritarianism - Explaining Variation in Welfare Provision among Chinese Localities

Harvard University, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

Over the past twelve years, the central Chinese government has pushed to expand social policies in areas ranging from minimum income guarantees to health care insurance, but city and county governments, which have substantial authority in allocating expenditures to these programs, have conferred very different levels of benefits to their localities. The proposed project seeks to examine the sources of this variation in social policy provision, and in doing so, advance knowledge of social policy development and political decision-making in authoritarian regimes. The main explanation to be explored is whether the actions of citizens influence the provision of welfare and lead to the observed variation in a context without electoral competition. And if so, how or through what channels do citizens influence these policy decisions and who are the citizens that governments are responsive to? Do citizens exert influence through official channels such as public hearings or People's Congresses, or do they exert influence through protest or other activities that take place outside of formal institutions? Is it the wealthy that exert influence or it is the middle class or under class? These questions will be addressed by using multiple sources of data and a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodology. Case studies of localities with different levels of social welfare provision will be constructed using interviews and archival records. Quantitative analysis of counties and cities across China will also be used to address the research question. The intellectual merit of this project is in its theoretical and empirical contributions to the study of authoritarian distributive politics. Although many social welfare policies were first adopted under authoritarian regimes, there is a lack of theoretical and empirical understanding of the motivations for these actions. Studying social policy development is important to advance understandings of where social politics come from. As well, because of the highly visible and influential programs associated with social policies, research in this area helps shed light on how political choices are made in authoritarian regimes. This project focusing on China is part of the investigator's longer-term research goals to examine the theoretical foundations of the origins of welfare regimes and expand empirical knowledge of political decision-making in authoritarian regimes. The broader impacts of the proposed project include promoting training, enhancing infrastructure for research, and broadening dissemination to enhance future research. This project promotes training by involving undergraduates in the research experience and exposing them to content knowledge, statistical tools, and new methods of text analysis. Through partnerships with Chinese universities and research centers, this project also enhances the infrastructure for research. Key results of the project will also be shared online, as well as through workshops and conferences. Finally, this project provides social value by improving our general understanding of how essential social goods such as health care can be provided to the poor and disenfranchised. As well, by identifying the forces that shape crucial political choices in the Chinese state, this research seeks to provide more precise characterizations of who influences politics and how they influence politics in a context without elections.