Exploring the Mechanisms of the Development of Social Welfare Policies for Vulnerable Children in China—A Multicase Study

Abstract

ABSTRACTWith China's shift from its planned economy to a market economy in the early 1980s, followed by the tremendous socioeconomic changes in the 1990s and beyond that were initiated by the reform and opening‐up, vulnerable children have emerged as a growing population. In response to the rising needs of those vulnerable children, the Chinese government has developed a series of social welfare policies (SWPs). However, few studies have examined the policymaking processes and the mechanisms for forming and changing China's SWPs for vulnerable children. Therefore, to bridge that research gap we have focused in this study on the agenda‐setting of SWPs for vulnerable children in China. We selected the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) as our conceptual framework, and we used the process‐tracing approach to analyse the mechanisms of China's SWP development for vulnerable children. Using a multicase study, we found that a specific ‘focusing event’ formed a problem stream in each case. Then, helped by the media and the Internet, those focusing events triggered the national mood and shaped public opinion, which in turn formed a politics stream. Feeling growing pressure from the public, political leaders assigned tasks via written instructions intended to solve the problems and ensure that local governments act immediately. Hence, written instructions became a policy stream, and political leaders were the policy entrepreneurs. This article contributes to the theory by examining the MSF with China's cases and then modifying the framework with Chinese characteristics.