ABSTRACT
As the leadership sought to revitalize the economy, they opened up channels for the commercialization, privatization, and internationalization of the economy. Economic development along these lines then fostered structural differentiation, cultural pluralization, and subsystem autonomy. Strategic decisionmaking about China's future remained dominated by the party elite and constrained by the ideological and institutional imperatives necessary to retain that dominance. The most obvious pattern was ad hoc reformism marked by sharp swings in policy that reflected reaction to the economic cycles inherent in a semiplanned economy. The wide discretion given individual leaders to set up new institutions and staff them with loyalists and to use resources within institutions under their control ensured this. A focus on short-term gains characterized the reformers' approach as they sought to build political support for the reform. The tendency to turn to technocratic solutions for socioeconomic problems has increased with the emergence of a new generation of leaders and officials trained largely as engineers.
