Almost 20 years ago, Stanford sociologist Xueguang Zhou set out to explore a basic question: How is China governed? Professor Zhou joins Shorenstein APARC to talk about his new book that sets out to answer this question, 'The Logic of Governance in China: An Organizational Approach' (Cambridge University Press, 2022).
In his book, Zhou investigates how - given the fundamental tension between Beijing’s “all-encompassing role” and local governance - domestic policy gets carried out at the municipal or even village levels.
Zhou develops a framework that explains “variable coupling” between policymaking and actual implementation; he theorizes on how decision rights get distributed among different levels of government, and discusses how campaign-style mobilization gives Beijing the power to reset policy implementation. Beyond looking at institutions and government behavior, Zhou examines the relationship between the state and society in China, how governance can impact the local levels, and why protests, like those that erupted recently in the country in response to the government's zero-COVID policy, can still happen in the tightly controlled authoritarian state.
Xueguang Zhou is the Kwok-Ting Lee Professor in Economic Development ,a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and a professor of sociology at Stanford University.
In this video, Zhou speaks with George Krompacky, publications manager at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.