Welfare entrepreneurs and paradoxes of social control in rural China

本项目旨在考察由地方私营企业家经营的非国家福利制度如何影响当代中国农村的权力关系。该项目结合了人文科学和社会科学的方法，希望产生关于福利政策和实践如何与社会控制机构相互作用或共同发展的新知识。预期的研究成果包括关于后社会主义经济中非正式政治过程和制度发展的新经验数据。这将加强学术理论的基础，并为商业和政府组织提供信息和概念工具，以准确评估其中国合作伙伴、竞争对手或对手的优先事项。

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 will enhance the basis for scholarly theory and provide commercial and governmental organisations with the information and conceptual tools to accurately assess the priorities of their Chinese partners, competitors, or counterparts.