We are pleased to announce the winner of the 23rd ACPS Endicott annual meeting Best Paper Award.
After careful deliberations and discussions, the Best Paper Award committee has awarded the Best Paper Award to Prof. Shou Huisheng (Christopher Newport University) for his paper entitled “Globalization and Transformation of China’s Welfare Regime”.
This well-structured and well-written paper deals with an issue of practical and theoretical importance. It examines the impact of the Chinese integration into the world economy on China’s social welfare system. The author challenges two rather influential views: one is that the Maoist China was an ideal welfare state and the other is that the post-Mao China ignored the livelihood of underprivileged citizens. Instead the author finds that China’s remarkable integration into the world economy changed the Chinese economic structure, hence alleviating the need to protect millions of low-skilled labors employed by internationally-related businesses, and providing the Chinese government with more financial resources to cover more social groups. The author’s insight is not limited to China and he points out that Chinese welfare policies fit a general trend among many developing countries in the age of globalization. What distinguishes this paper is its careful collection of the data from China and those developing countries and its successful use of these data to support his central argument. In sum, this paper broadens and deepens our understanding of both China and the developing countries, and makes theoretical and empirical contributions to the existing literature on developing countries, especially China, and on such issues like globalization and welfare policies.
Respectfully Submitted ,
Best Paper Award Committee, 23rd Annual Meeting of ACPS
Wanfa Zhang, Ph.D., Chair
Shaohua Hu, Ph.D.
Jih-Un Kim, Ph.D.