Abstract: This forthcoming paper in The China Quarterly provides an analytical review of the social science literature on guanxi. The focus of this review is on the prevalence and the increasing significance of guanxi during China’s post-1978 reforms implemented to move to a market economy. Since then, researchers have engaged in debates on what guanxi actually means to Chinese people in the past and at present, how it has been adaptive to ongoing institutional transformations, and why its influence in economic, social, and political spheres can be stabling, increasing, or decreasing along with market reforms and economic growth. The author […]