This book is the first attempt to conceptualize China's central-local relations from the behavioral perspective. Although China does not have a federalist system of government, the author believes that, with deepening reform and openness, China's central-local relations is increasingly functioning on federalist principles. Federalism as a functioning system in China is under studied. The author defines the political system existing in China as "de facto federalism", and provides a detailed analysis of its sources and dynamics in the book. The system is mainly driven by two related factors -- inter-governmental decentralization and globalization. While economic decentralization since the 1980s has led to the formation of de facto federalism, globalization since the 1990s has accelerated this process and generated increasingly high pressure on the Chinese leadership to institutionalize de facto federalism by various measures of selective recentralzation.

鄭永年（1962—），浙江省餘姚人。中國政治、社會問題與國際關係專傢，現任新加坡國立大學東亞研究所所長，中國華南理工大學公共政策研究院學術委員會主席，《國際中國研究雜誌》(國際社會科學核心期刊)和《東亞政策》主編，羅特裏奇齣版社《中國政策叢書》主編和世界科技書局《當代中國研究叢書》共同主編。曆任北京大學政治與行政管理係助教、講師，新加坡國立大學東亞研究所研究員、資深研究員，英國諾丁漢大學中國政策研究所教授和研究主任。先後獲得美國社會科學研究會/麥剋阿瑟基金會和美國麥剋阿瑟基金會(2003-2005)研究基金的資助。其主要從事中國內部轉型及其外部關係研究，主要研究興趣和領域包括民族主義與國際關係；東亞地區安全；中國外交政策；全球化、國傢製度和社會轉型；技術變革與政治轉型；社會運動與民主化；中國政治與中央地方關係。