ABSTRACT
This study has situated China’s welfare transformation in a broader context of developing countries within the framework of global economic integration. It argued that China’s reform has followed a movement of welfare transformation that has taken place throughout the developing world since the 1980s. To understand this movement, I offered a theoretical framework in order to reveal the “global-local” dynamics underpinning this process of welfare institutionalization, that is, the interaction between the structural forces of global economic integration and specific local conditions. I have argued that it is inadequate to look only at one side and ignore its complicated connection to the other. Instead, once we tie the two sets of dynamics together, many puzzles previously unsolved can be better understood. In this concluding chapter, I will discuss four puzzles. The first one of the puzzles is the so-called globalization-welfare nexus. The second is about the nature of China’s state-market-society relations and its authoritarian regime in light of welfare transition. The third one is about the comparability between East Asia (including China) and the rest of the world, particularly the developing countries that see East Asian countries as the role model of economic growth. The fourth one is the relationship between institutions and structures.
