The 2008-09 global economic crises have shown that no country is immune to external challenges. When policy controls are missing or not used efficiently, crises can reverse progress even in advanced economies. This unexpected outcome has increased concerns about the ability of governments in...

During the first decade of the 21st century, China’s top leaders reined in the marketising, commercialising welfare reforms of the 1990s, and recommitted the State to a role in providing social goods. But the governmental and social elites who shape welfare policy are still debating the...