Policy entrepreneurship under hierarchy: how state actors change policies in China

Abstract How do actors develop entrepreneurial activities to bring about policy change? To what extent do the contexts in which they are embedded shape their behaviors? Relying on three comparative case studies, we use the structure-, institution- and agent-based analytical framework to investigate the complex and dynamic interactions between contexts and actors in the process of policy change initiated by state actors in authoritarian China. We propose a conceptual framework, ‘policy entrepreneurship under hierarchy’, which highlights the influence of power domination during the policy change process. It allows us to offer a renewed definition of policy entrepreneur and to identify a pattern of successful policy entrepreneurship in contrast to the ‘four central elements’ suggested by Mintrom and Nomann. We conclude that hierarchical policy entrepreneurship in China is displayed through two kinds of relationship: the proposal-approval between policy entrepreneurs and their superiors; and the instruction-execution between policy entrepreneurs and their subordinates.