Motivated to Be Policy Entrepreneurs: The Changing Political Climate and Expert Involvement in China's Policy Process

Expert involvement in China's policy process has grown significantly since 2012, while the evolving motivations driving experts to act as policy entrepreneurs have received limited attention in the literature. This article examines how the changing political climate steers the rising involvement of experts in China's internal consultative information system. Through qualitative analysis of participatory observation and interviews, we find that the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) political reforms since 2012 have reconstructed the organizational incentive structure of government-funded research institutes, extrinsically motivating experts to write zhuanbao (专报, internal reports) for consultative services to the Party-state. Experts seek to enhance their writing skills and innovate strategies due to mixed intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, including financial rewards, career prospects, and professional reputations. This study contributes to the literature on policy entrepreneurship by introducing the concept of “extrinsically motivated policy entrepreneurship” and highlighting the role of top-down political pressure in shaping policy entrepreneur emergence in non-Western contexts.