Market Transition and Societal Transformation in Reforming State Socialism

Abstract

The far-reaching institutional change and societal transformation occurring in former state-socialist societies have attracted new social science interest in transition economies. This chapter reviews recent research on China, highlighting the theoretical arguments and findings of general interest to social scientists. The paper argues that a paradigm shift is taking place within research on China, from state-centered analysis to a theoretical approach that locates causal forces within a macrosocietal framework. Within a macrosocietal framework, state socialism is viewed as a distinctive institutional arrangement in which society, economy, and the state are integrated through society-wide redistributive arrangements. Forces in economic and political change emanate not only from political actors but from economic and social actors as well. The chapter reviews work in which a macrosocietal approach is used to address stratification, societal transformation, and marketization in reforming Chinese state socialism.

Institutions and individual strategies: how did job seekers respond to the changing employment environment in urban China?

“…The market-centred approach states the increasing importance of education as the new upward mobility channel in the transitional society (Nee 1989(Nee , 1991Cao and Nee 2000;Nee and Matthews 1996), which naturally leads to the hypothesis of the shift in the concentration of highly-educated job seekers from adherents to adventurers as marketization progressed. The state-centred approach emphasizes the persistence of political authority despite marketization (Bian and Logan 1996;Róna-Tas 1994;Walder 1996Walder , 2004Walder , 2009, which implies the persistent concentration of social resources within the state-controlled system.…”

Market Transition Theory Revisited: Changing Regimes of Housing Inequality in China, 1988-2002

“…Market transition theory has stimulated a lively, still ongoing debate about the social consequences of economic transformation in former communist societies (e.g., Bian and Logan 1996;Cao and Nee 2000;Gerber and Hout 1998;Hauser and Xie 2005;Nee 1991Nee , 1996Nee and Cao 2005;Nee and Matthews 1996;Parish and Michelson 1996;Szelényi and Kostello 1996;Walder 1995Walder , 1996Walder , 2002Walder and Nguyen 2008;Walder and Zhao 2006;Wu and Xie 2003;Xie and Hannum 1996;Zhou 2000). Central to the debate is the validity of the theory, and scholars have tested market transition theory by using empirical evidence from various periods and geographic regions.…”

Employment deconcentration in European metropolitan areas: A comprehensive comparison and policy implications

“…Given the initial conditions at the start of the transition, it is hardly surprising that the liberalization of the economy and the introduction of market processes led to greater income inequality (Nee & Peng, 1996). The spatial mismatch between jobs and residences is emerging in Prague and Brno (Sykora & in this book), contributing to increased travel in metropolitan areas and negative effects on the quality of life.…”