Macro-institutional change and social capital: the dynamics of guanxi influence in China, 1978-2021

Yanjie Bian, Lei Zhang and Xuewang Wang

Chapter 28 in Handbook on Inequality and Social Capital, 2024, pp 424-443 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter reviews sociological theories of contextual variability in social capital and develops a theoretical model in which the dynamics of guanxi influence, the social capital of personalized social relations in China, is altered by changing degrees of institutional uncertainty and market competition during the Chinese transitional economy since 1978. To test hypotheses derived from the model, the authors present results from an integrated dataset (N>22,000) of job searches from 1978 to 2021 to demonstrate that the effect of guanxi influence on jobs is increased by marketization and privatization but decreased by the institutionalization of merit-based screening of job applicants.

Keywords: Sociology and Social Policy; Sustainable Development Goals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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