Policy Entrepreneurship in China's Response to Urban Poverty

Recent studies of policy and policy actors in China have made use of the policy entrepreneur concept that has been popular in studies of policy in North America and Europe. These approaches have understood the concept in its traditional form dealing with agenda setting and nonstate actors. The policy entrepreneur has developed beyond these confines and now offers a broader descriptive framework within which to understand the successes and failures of particular initiatives. This article uses these new developments, specifically the framework outlined by Mintrom and Norman, to describe the success of policy entrepreneurship in the development of the urban resident Minimum Livelihood Guarantee. This case was selected because existing scholarship has ignored the entrepreneurial role of bureaucrats in its development. The use of this framework without adaptation to describe policy actors in China demonstrates the further application of policy entrepreneurs outside of Western democracies.