Featuring a wide geographical scope, this collection of essays surveys enterprise and welfare reforms in all the remaining four Asian communist states: China, Vietnam, Laos and North Korea. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union they can no longer place major reliance upon assistance from other 'fraternal' states and have to devise their own strategies for survival. All have shown a trend towards greater reliance on market forces, though in different ways and to varying degrees. Enterprise management has to adapt to this. In some of them entrepreneurs have become politically and socially acceptable. They may even begin to set trends for social evolution. Yet since state entreprises used to be responsible for all welfare payments to employees and their families, management reforms cannot be separated from those of welfare arrangements. Reducing an enterprise's non-commerical obligations for the sake of greater market efficiency is bound to affect welfare provision. It also reopens the role of official trade unions. How these regimes cope with these conflicting pressures are vital factors in their long-term viability.

Featuring a wide geographical scope, this collection of essays surveys enterprise and welfare reforms in all the remaining four Asian communist states: China, Vietnam, Laos and North Korea. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union they can no longer place major reliance upon assistance from other 'fraternal' states and have to devise their own strategies for survival. All have shown a trend towards greater reliance on market forces, though in different ways and to varying degrees. Enterprise management has to adapt to this. In some of them entrepreneurs have become politically and socially acceptable. They may even begin to set trends for social evolution. Yet since state entreprises used to be responsible for all welfare payments to employees and their families, management reforms cannot be separated from those of welfare arrangements. Reducing an enterprise's non-commerical obligations for the sake of greater market efficiency is bound to affect welfare provision. It also reopens the role of official trade unions. How these regimes cope with these conflicting pressures are vital factors in their long-term viability.

When, how, and why did the state enterprise system of modern China take shape? The conventional argument is that China borrowed its economic system and development strategy wholesale from the Soviet Union in the 1950s. In an important new interpretation, Bian shows instead that the basic institutional arrangement of state-owned enterprise--bureaucratic governance, management and incentive mechanisms, and the provision of social services and welfare--developed in China during the war years 1937-1945.

This book is intended for policy-makers, academics and students of development studies, area studies, political economy, geography and political science. Three of the best global performers in terms of economic growth are authoritarian states led by communist parties. The ‘socialist market economy’ model employed in China, Vietnam and Laos performs better than the economic systems in countries at a similar level of income per capita on a wide range of development indicators, yet market reforms and governance failures have led to highly unequal societies and significant environmental problems. This book presents the first comparative study of development in these three countries. Written by country experts and scholars of development studies, it explores the ongoing quest for market versus state within their model, and the coherence of their development. Chapter 5 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

An international team of contributors analyzes the state of European, Japanese and American scholarship on China over the last decade, exploring in depth the main subjects and trends in research being done on contemporary Chinese politics, economy, foreign affairs and security studies.

This book provides a fascinating perspective of the experiences of China's reform in the past three decades by focusing on China's interaction with and learning from the external world in her unprecedented efforts to reform and open up. After three introductory chapters on broad scope of reform in the political, economic, and social realms, this book deals with lessons from the Eastern Bloc, China's reform in East Asian context, and China and the developed world. The book concludes with two chapters looking to the future of China's political and economic development. In the existing literature of China's reform experience, this book is unique in perspective, topic selection, and in-depth analyses. With contributions from a group of prominent scholars in the field of China studies such as John Wong, Zheng Yongnian, Thomas P Bernstein, Dorothy J Solinger, and Bo Zhiyue, it will be of immense value to anyone who is interested in China.

First published in 1952, the International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (anthropology, economics, political science, and sociology) is well established as a major bibliographic reference for students, researchers and librarians in the social sciences worldwide. Key features: * Authority: Rigorous standards are applied to make the IBSS the most authoritative selective bibliography ever produced. Articles and books are selected on merit by some of the world's most expert librarians and academics. * Breadth: Today the IBSS covers over 2000 journals - more than any other comparable resource. The latest monograph publications are also included. * International Coverage: The IBSS reviews scholarship published in over thirty languages, including publications from Eastern Europe and the developing world. * User friendly organization: all non-English titles are word sections. Extensive author, subject and place name indexes are provided in both English and French.

The book examines the political economy of the states of Pacific Asia, stretching from Japan to Burma since the end of WWII.