Carol Lee Hamrin is adjunct professor at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), the Johns Hopkins University, and a Chinese affairs specialist at the U.S. Department of State. Suisheng Zhao is assistant professor of government at Colby College in Maine and founder and editor of the Journal of Contemporary China. Su Shaozhi is former director of the Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought Institute at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

• I. Central Leadership and Executive Systems Part II. Bureaucratic Structure, Process, and Politics III. Experiments in System Reform, Part IV Comparisons and Conclusions