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Podcast: New Books in Sociology
Episode: Yingyao Wang, "Markets with Bureaucratic Characteristics: How Economic Bureaucrats Make Policies and Remake the Chinese State" (Columbia UP, 2024)
Description: China’s breathtaking economic development has been driven by bureaucrats. Even as the country transitioned away from socialist planning toward a market economy, the economic bureaucracy retained a striking degree of influence and control over crafting and implementing policy. Yet bureaucrats are often dismissed as faceless and inconsequential, their role neglected in favor of party leaders’ top-down rule or bottom-up initiatives.