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Policy Innovation of Local Officials in China: the Administrative Choice

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Abstract

Local policy innovation is considered one of the major drives for China’s rapid economic development, especially during the first 35 years of reform in China. Given the new central policies and constant anti-corruption campaigns under the Xi administration, this article examines a timely question of why and how local officials continue to develop new innovative policies and projects. Based on previous theoretical building, the article analyzes such key institutional factors as new rules of game and their impact on local officials’ competition for survival and career advancement. Selecting cases across all the districts from a typical city in China, this article compares and identifies the changing patterns in local policy innovation. Policy innovations are administrative choices made by local officials in response to new and changing institutional opportunities and constraints. The discussion in this article makes significant contributions both theoretically and empirically to the China studies.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Yu Sun for research assistance and two anonymous reviewers for comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, 29631-1354, USA

    Xiaobo Hu

  2. School of Government, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China

    Fanbin Kong

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  1. Xiaobo Hu
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Correspondence to Fanbin Kong.

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Hu, X., Kong, F. Policy Innovation of Local Officials in China: the Administrative Choice. J OF CHIN POLIT SCI 26, 695–721 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11366-021-09727-6

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