Science Policy Shifts, Organizational Change and China's Development

Abstract

One of the most notable features of post-1949 China has been its striking periodicity. Through their pronounced policy changes and frequent political campaigns, Chinese leaders have incidentally provided the foreign analyst with a set of periods according to which events may be readily classified. Indeed, the temporal variable is the chief qualifier on which our generalizations must be contingent. There are few statements about the People's Republic, particularly those dealing with its conscious efforts at “development,” which can be made without a modifying phrase such as “before the cultural Revolution …” or “as a result of the Great Leap….” Thus, though considerations of time are obviously important for any developmental analysis, they are particularly significant with regard to China where one is struck by the frequency, suddenness and apparent disjointedness of change. The untidy set of events since 1949 which comprises China's developmental experience violates the sense of orderly progress on which so much of our thinking about development has been based.