Chapter 1 introduces the book’s core argument: that leadership in China’s public sector helps to explain variation in reform outcomes at the organization level. Focusing on Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs), it introduces the book’s analysis of the effects of leader decisions about strategy and structure and their execution on two types of reform outcomes: (1) the degree to which SOE market expansion is decentralized and (2) changes in the balance of influence among intra-firm actors – who gains and who loses during reform. This chapter also provides an overview of Chinese SOEs’ domestic economic presence and their strategic functions for the state. It distinguishes between SOEs owned by central and local governments and situates them in China’s administrative hierarchy. Next, the chapter takes a closer look at central SOE leaders: their demographics, integration in China’s political system, and attributes relative to other Chinese officials. It concludes by previewing the content of the remaining chapters.

This chapter provides an overview and a summary of the following chapters.

This chapter first provides a brief review of the first remit given to the MPC in 1997 and why it would come to play such a key role in defining the monetary policy framework in the early years of the MPC.There is also a discussion of why the same concept has worked less well in other contexts, drawing on the UK’s attempts to introduce a remit for the IMF and pointing out the absence of a financial stability remit to match that for monetary policy.

The chapter examines the process of state building in the territory transferred from Germany to Poland in 1945, showing that mass uprooting shored up the demand for state-provided resources and weakened resistance to governance. It exploits the placement of the interwar border between Poland and Germany to estimate the effects of postwar population transfers on the size of the state. It then examines the political legacies of population transfers in post-1989 Poland.

This chapter is about the communication of monetary policy, and specifically the role of “forward guidance”. This is taken to mean statements by monetary authorities about future policy.

This chapter provides the historical background necessary to understand the book’s empirical analysis. It discusses the political decisions that led to the displacement of Germans and Poles at the end of WWII and challenges the assumption that uprooted communities were internally homogeneous. It then zooms in on the process of uprooting and resettlement and introduces data on the size and heterogeneity of the migrant population in postwar Poland and West Germany.

Chapter 7 concludes by summarizing what a leadership approach contributes to the analysis of China’s politics and economy. It introduces the concept of the “intra-organizational politics of reform”: the daily dynamics of cooperation and conflict between leaders and their subordinates inside public-sector organizations. While elite politics and bargaining among different parts and levels of the Chinese bureaucracy have received much attention, the internal world of public-sector organizations is also a crucial arena for reform politics. Such intra-organizational politics both constitute the everyday substance of reform and shape its ultimate course. Next, the chapter discusses the increasingly global context and effects of leadership in Chinese SOEs. It explains why leadership continues to matter despite the ongoing centralization of political authority under Xi Jinping. Finally, it outlines several directions for future research on leadership in China’s public sector during the Xi era.

Chapter 7 turns to ethnic return migrations, Russia’s Compatriot Resettlement Program and the Poland’s Karta Polaka (Pole’s Card) program. In these cases migrants entered ‘virtuous inclusionary cycles’ : societies were receptive to them as co- ethnics, political elites sponsored and financed their resettlement and media, mostly state-controlled in both states, lauded their contributions. The chapter analyzes the motives of the Polish and Russian governments in sponsoring re-settlers, including demographic replacement for declining populations, workers to fill labor shortages, and symbolic nationalist political agendas. It shows that welfare nationalist grievances did emerge over the resetlers’ social privileges and nationals’ competition with them for scare social resources. There were also disputes over the boundaries of national belonging. In sharp contrast to the exclusionary migrations, Russian and Polish political elites managed and mitigated grievances rather than mobilizing them for political gain. Resettlers confronted obstacles to integration: severe restrictions on residence and job rights in Russia, limited language fluency in Poland. Still, inclusionary policies gave resettlers social, economic and civil rights denied to those in exclusionary migrations.

This chapter sets out a dozen propositions aimed at underpinning and, perhaps, revitalising Britain’s Monetary Policy Committee and the regime entrusted to it. It has not addressed the many reform proposals - such as merging the MPC and Financial Policy Committee, or having regional representatives on the MPC. Nor has it addressed the incentives of the regime’s parliamentary and other overseers.

This chapter addresses three primary concerns. First, whether political settlement in Gujarat has undergone a change since liberalisation. Second, the impact of ‘class’ interest on state apparatus with respect to agricultural policies and, because of such policies, if the existing proprietary classes have transformed themselves, remained unaffected, or have been replaced by new classes. Third, given that the state has been welcoming market forces, particularly under Chief Minister Modi, whether the market's free play has curbed the state's role in agriculture. These questions have been addressed by assessing various aspects of Gujarat's agrarian policy after 2000, in addition to land acquisition policies. Simultaneously, an analysis of what these policies entail for different classes of farmers is developed alongside the other two proprietary classes – the capitalist and the petty bourgeoisie. This analysis is, thus, undertaken from two angles – classes’ influence on the state and the state's role in forming, altering, and consolidating classes. It is based on field research in Gujarat, conducted between October 2011 and January 2012.

The first section of the chapter offers a brief history of the state and outlines the changes in its economy in the past two decades. This is followed by sections presenting the fieldwork findings, in combination with a review of secondary literature. These sections first elaborate the main tenets of agricultural policy and the key factors behind the agricultural success of Gujarat, and then evaluate through a politico-economic lens, differential impact across classes and their fractions that have contributed to the agrarian success in Gujarat, particularly after 2000.

Brief overview

Geographical divisions

The present state of Gujarat historically constituted of two parts: Saurashtra and mainland Gujarat. During the colonial period, Saurashtra was a feudatory state and was constituted of 112 principalities, while the mainland was under the British rule. Baroda was an exception; it was situated in Gujarat but was ruled by an enlightened royalty reputed for its benevolence towards its subjects, contributing to the pursuit of education and arts among its population (Bakhle, 2005). Baroda merged with Gujarat in 1949. In 1960, the regional state of Bombay was divided into two states, Maharashtra and Gujarat. Thus, Gujarat gained independent statehood.