The year of 2019 is the 80th anniversary of the finding if People’s Republic of China. This book outlines the development of governance in China since its foundation. This should attract the interest of a variety of audiences. Although its core readership should be academicians and students of Chinese and Comparative Public Policy, it is also hoped that it inspires the interest of academics studying the history of institutions. Because of the nature of the topic, this research may be of interest to Chinese policy-makers. The role of administrative reform in state transformation has not been rigorously studied in China. Hence, the presentation of a framework for understanding the administrative reform process and its outcomes is an important contribution to the study of Chinese public policy. In addition, the thesis makes a general theoretical and case study contribution to the comparative public policy literature on administrative reform.

This book seeks to make three main contributions to the studies of governance and public policy in China:

Firstly, it provides the first account of governance in China since Mao’s legacy to Deng’s openness; Jiang’s inter development; Hu’s ‘harmonious society’ and then to the Xi’s ‘new era’.
Secondly, this book clarifies the characteristics of each administration since the founding of New China. Especially, it combines traditional Chinese scholarship with Western thinking through the cultural assimilation of the policy transfer and lesson drawing and its application in Chinese context.
Thirdly, it combines an understanding of localism, with developmental state theory and the New Authoritarianism and uses them to construct a theory of state transformation with Chinese characteristics.