Epidemic Outbreaks as Trigger of Policy Change: China's 2004 Amendment of the Infectious Diseases Law

The Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) is one of the most frequently applied policy process theories. Originally developed to explain agenda change in the US federal system, the framework has since been used to examine why issues reach the policy agenda and how policy decisions are made in other countries. In response to calls for more systematic MSF research beyond the USA and Europe, this paper applies the framework to China. It does so through a case study of the 2004 amendment of the Law on the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases. The case study identifies factors that contributed to agendasetting and shows that the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak triggered this amendment. We apply qualitative content analysis to a dataset comprising China Health Statistics, Chinese journal articles, news articles, World Health Organization Disease Outbreak News, and policy documents. By testing the MSF hypotheses’ in the context of lawmaking in China, this paper contributes to MSF theory development while deepening our understanding of China’s policy process.