8. State Responsibility or Societal Participation? The Future of Authoritarian Social Policies

The concluding chapter summarizes the findings of previous chapters. Although China’s social policy reform somewhat resembles the “hybridization” patterns in post-communist countries, the processes of internalization of existing foreign models, as well as their reinventions through local experiments are distinctive in a decentralized authoritarian system. It is more appropriate to characterize the domestic policy processes as a multi-level game rather than prioritizing one set of actors or level over others. The authoritarian political institutions still define the boundaries of local agency. Local welfare mix models are most coherent and more compatible with growth models when there are less political institutional constraints. Furthermore, there are a few inherent tensions in the new model, especially between decentralization and recentralization, state dominance and pluralization, as well as political authoritarianism and participation or accountability. The future of social policy reform therefore remains highly uncertain given increasing political centralization under Xi Jinping.