Anatomising the Chinese State and Theorising It in Policymaking

Abstract: Conceptualising the contemporary Chinese state remains problematic due to its authoritarian attributes, its inextricable Party-state structure and its position within a political system that places emphasis on the normative and discursive aspects of a one-man/strongman rule. By highlighting pertinent aspects of the governance literature and utilising concept analysis and synthesis, this study proposes a novel "strategic-relational meta-governance" framework to anatomise and theorise the Chinese state. This framework acknowledges top-down meta-governance emanating from the paramount leader, the Party and the central government, with strategic relationships that vary according to historical and political contingencies, and the interactive relationships between different ministries and provincial governments. These actors collectively constitute the Chinese state, encompassing unitary elements from meta-governance and the agential selectivity derived from the strategic-relational interactions among them.