This book shows how Chinese officials have responded to popular and international pressure
while at the same time seeking to preserve their own careers in the context of disaster
management. Using the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake as a case study it illustrates how
authoritarian regimes are creating new governance mechanisms in response to the changing global
environment and what challenges they are confronted with in the process. The book examines both
the immediate and long-term effects of a major disaster on China's policy institutions and
governing practices and seeks to explain which factors lead to hasty and poorly conceived
reconstruction efforts which in turn reproduce the very same conditions of vulnerability or
expose communities to new risks. In short it tells a political story of how intra-governmental
interactions state-society relations and international engagement can shape the processes and
outcomes of recovery and reconstruction.
