Politics and Policy in China's Social Assistance Reform: Providing for the Poor?

Every day in the People’s Republic of China 70 million people receive help from the state through the minimum livelihood guarantee (dibao). What began as a reform in the city of Shanghai in the early 1990s is now a key component in the measures used by the Communist Party of China to maintain social stability and legitimacy. While scholars regularly discuss how effective dibao has been in alleviating poverty very little addresses what influenced its development. This book argues that in ord...