Glossary term
Experimentation under hierarchy
Also: policy experimentation, pilot programmesЧитать на русском
Sebastian Heilmann's term for the reform-era Chinese policy process in which local governments pilot new policies in designated sites or zones while the central leadership selects, generalises or halts them.
In more detail
Heilmann traced the practice to the CCP's revolutionary base areas and showed how it shaped decollectivisation, state-enterprise restructuring and the Special Economic Zones after 1978. Local officials gained room to innovate; the centre kept a veto and the power to turn a local model into national policy. The method lowered the political cost of reform but depended on honest reporting of failures. Jessica Teets and Reza Hasmath find that experimentation declined markedly under Xi Jinping as 'top-level design' replaced bottom-up trials.