Challenging the economic reform paradigm: policy and politics in the early 1980s collapse of the rural cooperative medical system

Duckett, J. (2011) Challenging the economic reform paradigm: policy and politics in the early 1980s collapse of the rural cooperative medical system. China Quarterly, 205, pp. 80-95. (doi: 10.1017/S0305741010001402)

Abstract

Over the last two decades an economic reform paradigm has dominated social security and health research: economic reform policies have defined its parameters, established its premises, generated its questions and even furnished its answers. This paradigm has been particularly influential in accounts of the early 1980s collapse of China’s rural cooperative medical system (CMS), which is depicted almost exclusively as the outcome of the post-Mao economic policies that decollectivized agriculture. This paper draws primarily on government documents and newspaper reports from the late 1970s and early 1980s to argue that CMS collapse is better explained by a change in health policy. It shows that this policy change was in turn shaped both by post-Mao elite politics and by CMS institutions dating back to the late 1960s. The paper concludes by discussing how an explanation of CMS collapse that is centred on health policy and politics reveals the limitations of the economic reform paradigm and contributes to a fuller understanding of the post-Mao period.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Duckett, Professor Jane
• Authors: Duckett, J.
• Subjects: H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Politics
• Journal Name: China Quarterly
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• ISSN: 0305-7410
• ISSN (Online): 1468-2648
• Published Online: 01 April 2011
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2011 Cambridge University Press
• First Published: First published in China Quarterly 205:80-95
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher