ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on implementation where central-local tugs of war take place nearly everywhere, every day. It presents the historical context where policy implementation in China was bound to have high degrees of "slippage" due to its extraordinary size. The chapter examines the post-Mao reformer's efforts to transform the dominant norms governing central-local relations so as to facilitate local discretion and regional diversity. It provides pertinent evidence of increasing local discretion as an outcome of such transformed norms in the post-Mao era. The chapter focuses on policy type, among other things, as an independent variable affecting the extent of local discretion in implementation. It also examines a couple of key instruments of control designed to ensure local compliance in the era of local assertiveness. One principal institutional context where the dynamics of implementation are prominent concerns the workings of China's unitary system. The chapter offers some concluding remarks on the central-local balance of power in the domain of implementation.
