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In response to calls to apply the multiple streams framework to nondemocracies, this article adapts the framework to an authoritarian context and applies it to a case study of live poultry sales in food markets in China, a key issue in epidemic prevention. Using a dataset consisting of Chinese policy documents, Chinese news articles, World Health Organization data, and secondary literature, the study shows that despite the public health threat posed by live poultry sales and despite high-level political support, a national-level permanent ban has not been adopted because it is technically infeasible, financially inviable, and inconsistent with existing norms and values. The study suggests that-despite the country's top-down governance style and lack of political pluralism-policy preferences expressed by members of the policy-making elite are not necessarily adopted in authoritarian China. Future research should test the proposed hypotheses in other policy areas and other authoritarian contexts.

The Programmatic Action Framework (PAF) is a powerful analytical perspective to advance our understanding of policy change by stressing the role of programmatic groups and how they promote their preferred policy programs. While the PAF has been applied successfully to European countries and the US, a considerable research gap remains regarding its explanatory power in other regions and political settings. To step into this research gap, we apply the PAF to authoritarian China through a qualitative case study of the making of "Healthy China 2030", a national health policy program. We explore two research questions: firstly, to what extent can the PAF be operationalized in a nondemocracy to identify programmatic groups and evaluate policy design, and second, what are the limitations and challenges facing the application of the PAF to nondemocracies? Our empirical analysis shows that the design of this policy program involves actors from different policy areas, despite the top-down political structure. With regards to the transfer of PAF hypotheses, we show that the framework is a helpful lens to identify programmatic groups and to evaluate policy programs' potential for success based on coherence, responsiveness, and program fit.

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