Abstract
This article uses an institutional approach to explain the different economic reform outcomes in the Soviet Union and China. It studies how the different institutional positions of the Soviet and Chinese central economic bureaucracies give them different power resources to resist economic reform policies. This article shows that crucial differences between the two regimes in historical experiences, economic development strategies, and ideologies on bureaucratic rationality created different levels of institutional participation by the two central economic bureaucracies in state economic policymaking, and different economic management structures. Specifically, in the Soviet Union there was a strong participatory bureaucracy and a ministerial, vertically based economic management structure. In China however, there was a state leader dominated, politically weak bureaucracy and a provincial, horizontally based economic management structure. These crucial institutional differences, I argue, later gave the two central economic bureaucracies not only different incentives but also different resources to resist and sabotage economic reforms.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 312-341 |
| Number of pages | 30 |
| Journal | Governance |
| Volume | 5 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Jul 1992 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Governance is a top journal for the field of governance and public policy and a leading journal in political science. According to ISI journal citation report for 2009, it was ranked #3 for impact factor among 31 journals in public administration and policy. It was also ranked #11 among 113 journals of political science.According to the Research Journal Ranking Review List of the Austrrlian Research Council, the journal has A ranking in the policy and administratin category of 197 journals.
