Just one child : science and policy in Deng's China / Susan Greenhalgh.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Greenhalgh, Susan.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Birth control--China--History--20th century.

Birth control.

Women--Social conditions--20th century.

Women.

Family Planning Policy--history.

Birth Rate.

Family Planning Services--history.

History, 20th Century.

Population Control--history.

Population Growth.

Public Policy.

China--Population policy.

China.

Medical Subjects:

Family Planning Policy--history.

Birth Rate.

Family Planning Services--history.

History, 20th Century.

Population Control--history.

Population Growth.

Public Policy.

China.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxii, 403 p., [6] p. of plates ) ill. ;

Other Title:

Science and policy in Deng's China

Place of Publication:

Berkeley, Calif. ; London : University of California Press, c2008.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

"China's one-child rule is unassailably one of the most controversial social policies of all time. In the first book of its kind, Susan Greenhalgh draws on twenty years of research into China's population politics to explain how the leaders of a nation of one billion decided to limit all couples to one child. Focusing on the historic period 1978-80, when China was reentering the global capitalist system after decades of self-imposed isolation, Greenhalgh documents the extraordinary manner in which a handful of leading aerospace engineers hijacked the population policymaking process and formulated a strategy that treated people like missiles. Just One Child situates these science- and policy making practices in their broader contexts -- the scientization and statisticalization of socio-political life -- and provides the most detailed and incisive account yet of the origins of the one-child policy. In examining the larger issues relating to the interconnections between science and politics, this groundbreaking study develops a new, epistemic approach to the study of public policy and shows how, in China, scientific policymaking led directly to social suffering on a vast scale while giving birth to a technoscientific state."--Book cover.

Contents:

Introduction : an anthropology of science making and policymaking

History : the "ideology" before the "science"

A Chinese Marxian statistics of population

A sinified cybernetics of population

A Chinese Marxian humanism of population

The scientific revolution in Chengdu

Ally recruitment in Beijing

Scientific policymaking in Zhongnanhai

Conclusion : why an epistemic approach matters.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. 371-394) and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780520941267

0520941268

OCLC:

1294196012

Publisher Number:

2027/heb09193 hdl