Bringing China into Comparative Welfare Research: Pension Reform in China – A Historical Institutionalist Case Study (1980s-2010s)

This thesis aims to bring China into comparative welfare research by using a historical institutionalist framework to study Chinese pension reforms (1980s-2010s). The study takes as its starting point the literature on welfare state development and change in the West and thus traces the development of Chinese pensions in comparative perspective. The discussion of the determinants of Chinese pension development concentrates on the history (path dependence, timing and sequences) as well as meso level institutions (veto points, veto players) and their interplay with macro context and micro actors in the policy making process. In order to explore the key explanatory and outcome variables in the research framework, this study includes a detailed discussion of the conceptualization, operationalization, and measurement of the dependent variable, Chinese pension reform, as well as, by way of synthesizing key contributions in the existing historical institutionalist pension reform literature, a detailed theoretical attempt to disentangle the explanatory power of mainstream determinants of pension reform. ‘Bringing China into comparative welfare research’ thereby necessitates the proposition of a revised framework of analysis based on China’s context and new developments within historical institutionalism. By using this alternative framework, this study attempts to improve the theoretical understanding of China as well as to discuss practical policy issues facing China.