The contesting quest for old-age security: institutional politics in China's pension reforms

The overhaul of the existing pension institutions in China poses a serious governance challenge. This article argues that the ways in which the state responds to social problems are necessarily mediated by the political institutions in favour of continued bargaining between different government bureaucracies. Social policy outcomes are often subject to the contestation of diverse policy ideas and interest conflicts among the actors. Using the example of pension reforms in urban and rural China, we analyse how political institutions facilitate or constrain the diverse policy initiatives by competing bureaucratic ministries, thereby influencing the reform process. The main finding is that the inherent conflicts, compounded by the diversity of policy development at regional level, have considerably precluded coherence in the governance efforts of the central government. The distinct institutional politics revealed by the pension reforms is set to have profound implications for the future development of Chinese social policy.