Welfare Entrepreneurs and Paradoxes of Social Control in Rural China

This project aims to examine how non-state welfare systems run by local private entrepreneurs affect power relationships in contemporary rural China. Combining humanistic and social science approaches, the project expects to generate new knowledge about how welfare policies and practices interact with or develop alongside institutions of social control. Expected research outcomes include new empirical data on informal political processes and institutional development in post-Socialist economies. This should provide scholars with a solid basis for theory-building, and commercial and governmental organisations with the information and conceptual tools to accurately assess the priorities of their Chinese partners, competitors, or counterparts.