The Politics of Social Harmony: Ruling Strategy and Health Care Policy in Hu's China

Abstract

This study seeks to explain the causes of social welfare policy change in a single‐party authoritarian system. Using the evolution of Chinese health care policy as an example, it discerns why the Hu Jintao administration opted for a compensation‐oriented welfare policy paradigm in the absence of adequate interest articulation and apparent electoral accountability, despite the virtual collapse of the Chinese social welfare system during the 1990s. I explore the hypothesis that a high level of political pressure, coupled with a high degree of economic openness, drove the Chinese Communist Party to alter its ruling strategy, a political paradigm that best ensures its monopoly on political power and consequently produces distinct implications for public policy outputs. This study suggests that authoritarian regimes can and do compensate the citizenry under certain circumstances. Further, it also reveals a self‐adaptation process initiated by a single‐party authoritarian system.