Social policy learning and diffusion in China: the rise of welfare regions?
研究中国地方社会政策学习如何影响中央政府的监管能力，基于城市养老金改革和最低生活保障制度的分析，发现地方行动导致社会保障地方化，挑战中央统一治理。
This article offers an account of the peculiar phenomenon of social policy learning in China, and illustrates the situations in which local policy learning can either facilitate, or constrain, the capacity of the central government to monitor social policy development. Based on analyses of the urban pension reform and the introduction of the Minimum Living Standard Scheme, the article concludes that local activism has become an eclectic tool for policy learning and diffusion leading to subnationalisation of social protection, which poses a challenge to the central government in its efforts of coherent social policy governance.