Social Assistance in China 1993-2002: Accommodating Institutions and Sponsors.

From 1993 to 2002 the emergence of the urban resident Minimum Livelihood Guarantee (MLG) system saw a major reconfiguration and expansion of social assistance in the People's Republic of China. Explanations of the MLG have either presented the emergence in terms of a logical evolution on the previous social assistance system or have focused on the stages of the policy's development. This paper, drawing on insights provided by the wider political science literature, will argue that the development of the MLG system has been a much more complex process. The initial design of the policy reflects constraints placed on the social assistance agenda by previous policy choices and commitments. The further expansion and development of the MLG can be explained by the interventions of key policy sponsors in the Chinese bureaucracy for a variety of different reasons. By taking advantage of or being forced to act by developments in the social assistance agenda these policy sponsors have utilised available resources, within the institutional constraints of the period, to shape the MLG. Rather than treating the emergence and subsequent development of the MLG as a self contained case this paper seeks to present the policy sponsors and institutional constraints of the MLG within the wider context of both the China studies and political science literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]