Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Understanding Chinese "Welfare States": Rural Health Policy and the New Cooperative Medical System

政治学博士论文研究：认识中国“福利国家”：农村卫生政策与新型合作医疗制度

• 批准号: 1023872
• 负责人: Edward Friedman
• 金额: $ 1.2万
• 依托单位: University of Wisconsin-Madison
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-09-01 至 2011-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1023872&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Political; Science

Without the pressures of elections or independent civil society, what motivates the Chinese government to expand social welfare provision? Moreover, what accounts for local variation in implementation of social policy in China? Through an analysis of rural health delivery in China, this project will address the larger issue of welfare state performance in non-democratic developing countries, which comprise half of the world's people and nations. Despite the significance of this issue, the dominant research paradigms ignore or misrepresent authoritarian systems and instead focus on the impacts of democratic forces, such as civil society and electoral competition.Another gap in the current literature limits its utility for policy analysis in the quest for good governance. Much policy analysis of welfare regimes in developing countries is overly focused on policy adoption at the national level. In reality, all regime types have to grapple with the difficulties inherent to the geographic and regional diversity that produces the complex realities of local communities. Without understanding variation within a country, an analyst cannot fully grasp the causes driving policy successes and failures. This research begins to fill in these glaring lacunae.To this end, the dissertation will examine the adoption and variation in implementation of the New Cooperative Medical System (NCMS) in rural China. Building on the existing literature, this project will evaluate three broad categories of hypotheses: political and historical context, economic constraints, and social forces. The extant literature on the welfare state in developing countries examines the first two sets of hypotheses at the national level; this research will test whether these factors affect variation in implementation of the NCMS at the local level in China. As for the effect of social forces, the current literature typically emphasizes the role of democracy and democratization; this project will examine whether and how social forces affect the adoption and implementation of social policy in an authoritarian context. To test these theories empirically, the dissertation will rely on qualitative research, including archival research; semi-structured interviews with government officials, medical personnel, and villagers; and the analysis of an original survey of county-level Public Health officials in five provinces.In addition, this dissertation will have concrete broader impacts through the dissemination of an original survey and the presentation of results in China and other developing countries. First, the original survey will be archived for public use. Second, the co-investigator will collaborate with Chinese partners and present the results of her research in Chinese at Chinese universities. Third, the dissertation has policy implications for social policy in developing countries and will include a comparative chapter on social policy in other developing countries. Thus, the results will have implications for both academic debates and policymakers concerned with social welfare provision in China and beyond.

如果没有选举和独立公民社会的压力，中国政府扩大社会福利的动力是什么？此外，是什么导致了中国社会政策实施的地方差异？通过对中国农村卫生服务的分析，该项目将解决非民主发展中国家（这些国家占世界人口和国家的一半）福利国家绩效的更大问题。尽管这个问题很重要，但主流研究范式忽视或歪曲了威权制度，而是关注民主力量的影响，例如公民社会和选举竞争。当前文献中的另一个空白限制了其在寻求政治分析的过程中的实用性。良好的治理。对发展中国家福利制度的许多政策分析都过度关注国家层面的政策采用。事实上，所有政权类型都必须应对地理和区域多样性所固有的困难，这些多样性造成了当地社区的复杂现实。如果不了解一个国家内部的差异，分析师就无法完全掌握政策成功和失败的原因。本研究开始填补这些明显的空白。为此，本文将探讨新型合作医疗制度（NCMS）在中国农村的采用和实施过程中的变化。在现有文献的基础上，该项目将评估三大类假设：政治和历史背景、经济约束和社会力量。关于发展中国家福利国家的现有文献在国家层面检验了前两组假设；本研究将检验这些因素是否会影响中国地方层面新农合实施的差异。对于社会力量的作用，目前的文献通常强调民主和民主化的作用；该项目将研究社会力量是否以及如何影响独裁背景下社会政策的通过和实施。为了对这些理论进行实证检验，论文将依靠定性研究，包括档案研究；对政府官员、医务人员和村民的半结构化访谈；此外，本论文将通过在中国和其他发展中国家传播原始调查和介绍结果，产生更广泛的具体影响。首先，原始调查将被存档以供公众使用。其次，联合研究员将与中国合作伙伴合作，在中国大学用中文展示她的研究成果。第三，本文对发展中国家的社会政策具有政策影响，并将包括关于其他发展中国家社会政策的比较章节。因此，研究结果将对中国及其他地区关注社会福利提供的学术辩论和政策制定者产生影响。