In Search of a Rationalized Chinese Administrative State.

From a national strategic development perspective, statism and state administrative apparatus may be functional and thus desirable in the course of development of some nation-states. Continual monitoring of the development trajectory, however, is necessary to ensure that the respective state is prepared to address a critical question as raised by Nobel Laureate Prof. Joseph Stiglitz: development for what? Basing on literature review and field interview, this paper aims to underscore the basic problems that negatively affect China’s effort to enhance substantive rationality in its present course of development. Singled out are the logic of administration and state cadres’ dominant logic that have a direct bearing on the search for a substantively rational administrative state. Policy and research implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]