The socioeconomic transition of China in the past decades has been accompanied by a notable shift of scholarly interests for numerous China experts. While old topics such as leadership transfer, cadre promotion, economic reform, civil society development and hukou remain prominently featured on the table of contents of premier journals, the rapid transformation of China's social welfare system has attracted increasing scholarly attention. Following the dismantlement of the communist “mini welfare state” in the 1980s, a plethora of nationwide welfare predicaments emerged and intensified both in cities and in the countryside. During the most critical periods, when numerous workers of state-owned enterprises were laid off (xiagang) and the vast majority of Chinese were not insured against major illnesses, one could hardly anticipate a dramatic and robust expansion of social policy in a few years, notably in the Hu–Wen era.

The past two decades have seen an exciting stream of literature that seeks to map out and explain the dynamics of social-policy reforms in China. A highly popular theme has been to tell the subnational stories. Despite rigid centralization of political power, the Chinese bureaucracy is not a monolith. Several waves of fiscal decentralization and the Chinese Communist Party's experimental approach of policymaking have combined to shape significant subnational variation in welfare arrangements. Some previous studies have offered exciting characterization of such variation through smart typologies. In her newly published book entitled Local Politics and Social Policy in China: Let Some Get Healthy First, Kerry Ratigan enriches this research agenda with an explicitly provincial perspective.

What makes Ratigan's book distinct from other similar works is her “policy style framework.” Through both conceptual treatment and quantitative measurement, the author manages to categorize Chinese provinces into pragmatic, paternalist and mixed styles in their policymaking. Not built in a domain-specific manner, however, this framework serves nicely in explaining the divergent social-policy approaches taken by Chinese provinces. Understood as “common or typical policymaking process” or “standard operating procedures in policymaking,” policy style has emerged as a promising organizing concept in policy studies. Scholars increasingly use this notion to capture the relatively enduring characteristics of governance and to explain the varying outcomes of policymaking across countries. As the sheer size of China and the fragmented political system are analogous to a cross-national comparison, one may reasonably expect that Chinese subnational authorities manifest varying styles in local governance.

Indeed, Ratigan has shown that Chinese provinces differ remarkably in their policy styles, notwithstanding the Leninist principles of governance. More importantly, the divergent styles have shaped social-policy implementation at the subnational level. She has revealed that pragmatic policy style is associated with an emphasis on universal welfare policies, especially education and health care, which support economic growth. In contrast, paternalistic policy style leads to greater efforts in poverty-alleviation and public-housing policies that are selective in nature and are often used to mitigate social instability. Lying between the two styles, mixed provinces exhibit both pragmatist and paternalist tendencies in their welfare provision. Supported by in-depth fieldwork in the early 2010s, the author strengthens her typological analysis with three illustrative cases in Jiangsu, Yunnan and Hubei, with each representing a distinctive policy style. This part of the book is equally exciting as the three cases well delineate the mentality of social policymaking and implementation within Chinese provinces, with abundant primary and secondary materials.

This book not only presents valuable original arguments, but also offers a solid synthesis of the vast literatures on social-policy dynamics in developing countries, China's politics and policymaking, and political economy. The author demonstrates an outstanding ability in drawing multiple theoretical approaches and frameworks into one compelling argument.

Acknowledging an analytical focus on the Hu Jintao era, Ratigan's book is not silent on recent developments since the central leadership transfer in 2012. Albeit brief, her observations on policymaking in the Xi Jinping era recognize the evident political recentralization and consider its implications for social policymaking. Local Politics and Social Policy in China will be of great value to social-policy experts, China specialists and the general readership in political science and public policy.