From fragmentation to centralization in policymaking: An explanation for the expansion of China's civilian nuclear industry

Abstract

AbstractSeveral countries have pursued nuclear programs for various reasons, including energy security, environmental benefits, and technological progress. China is no exception, having pursued civilian nuclear programs since the 1970s. Existing studies depict China's nuclear policymaking as a contested bureaucratic struggle based on fragmented authoritarianism. This study, however, reveals an increasingly centralizing tendency in China's nuclear policymaking since the mid‐2000s. The central government has begun to undergird China's transition to an exporting country of nuclear technology through many policy instruments, seeing its technology as a global brand. China's accelerated promotion of the nuclear sector based on such centralization contrasts with its neighboring governments' shift away from the top–down, government‐dominant mode of policymaking to a more pluralistic and deliberative one in the post‐Fukushima era.