Dead Ends and Policy Change in Chinese Experimental Governance

ABSTRACT Not all policy change is expansive, yet non‐expansive trajectories remain underexamined. This article introduces the concept of dead ends: a stage of the policy process in which initiatives cease to develop or be implemented in their existing form, structuring subsequent policy change such as rollback, redirection, or termination. To examine such trajectories, the article combines large‐scale analysis of 27,103 policy experiments announced in the People's Republic of China between 2013 and 2018 with qualitative case studies. The findings suggest that a substantial majority—up to 90%—of experiments reach dead ends. These dead ends are associated with leadership turnover, policy complexity, and misalignment with bureaucratic incentives and socio‐economic conditions. Altogether, the article provides new frameworks for understanding alternative directions of policy change. In doing so, it also sheds new light on the adaptive capacity and structural constraints of China's governance system.