| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Governance is a hot topic in China, as well as among political scientists. Ways of thinking about it can be improved. This essay offers a 'neo-functionalist' method to test for successful or unsuccessful governance of reform stability in China. It takes account of the need for participation in effective governance. Steering a state (or any part of a state) requires attention to multiple sizes of polity-especially several medial sizes in a country as large as China. Governance has varied over time during the 'reform' era, when anti-reform conservatives have remained important in many nested political networks. The paper shows variation of governance over time, over sizes of polity and over four sample governance functions: managing the economy, maintaining orderly stability, linking 'social' parts of the polity to the government, and choosing cadres. It shows how these categories exhaust a logical field that is at least implicit in any analysis of governance roles, and it suggests the value of a 'circulation of elites' paradigm when thinking about governance success or failure.
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