解构与重构：行业协会商会脱钩改革的政会关系变迁研究

作为中国现代社会组织体制改革的突破口,行业协会商会与行政机关脱钩改革从试点进入到全面推开阶段。考察脱钩改革的历史变迁,“去行政化”的核心目标和“推行政会分开”的改革方式一以贯之,政府对行业协会商会既培育发展又规范管理、秩序优先于活力的价值排序,构成中国行业协会商会管理体制改革的逻辑起点。脱钩改革带动政会关系从“行政主导”的解构转向“政治领导与合作共治并进”的重构,为此,需要从政治领导关系和合作共治关系两方面对构建适应于后脱钩时代的新型治理制度框架和整合机制提出完善建议。     

The Politics of Crisis Management: Public Leadership Under Pressure by Arjen Boin,Paul 't Hart,Eric Stern,and Bengt Sundelius

ABSTRACT

The article addresses two principal questions: how public management reforms develop in a context of high government turnover, and how, under these circumstances, features of the specific area of public management policy affect the dynamics of the reform and in particular its “technical feasibility.” The research questions are addressed through the case study of the Italian administrative context between 1992 and 2007, a period marked by tumultuous government turnovers. The article presents reforms in two policy areas of public management: civil service reform and innovation, over a three-period time span covering 15 years. The brief duration of political leadership represents a threat to the approval and implementation of policy interventions irrespective of the political salience of the issue and the need for legal enactment. Therefore, the success of a public management reform process in an unstable political context characterized by frequent government turnovers depends on meeting certain conditions for successful policy entrepreneurship: the a priori expertise of policy entrepreneurs, their ability to repackage the issue, keep a community of practice alive, and maneuver the dynamics of the legal process. However, implementation, being a less visible phase, suffers from greater discontinuity as “maintenance activities” necessary for the success of reform are disregarded. Thus, the consideration of the temporal dimension of the policy cycle and the area-specific effects on public management reform dynamics exerted by diverse levels of political salience and legal enactment represent the main contributions of this work to the theories on public management policy change.     

Public sector reform in a poor,aid‐dependent country,Tanzania

African public sectors went through many changes during the 1960s and 1970s in response to political, economic and social pressures. They expanded in size but remained, at least in design, hierarchical and centralized. Their formal relations to society did not undergo any significant changes either. Generally, the reforms now under way are significantly different from earlier ones. Most are inspired by the new public management (NPM) paradigm. They are also much more radical in their aims, among which are: to reduce the core functions of the state; redraw the boundaries between political and administrative responsibilities; emphasize efficiency; redefine relations between public and private sectors; strengthen accountability; reduce corruption; reorganize organizations and staff; change values and attitudes; and exploit new technologies. This article focuses on a paradox of reform in Tanzania: multiple changes are pursued in the public sector despite fragile domestic political support to the reform package as a whole and despite few service delivery improvements on the ground. It is argued that this is the result of substantial external influences, fragmented domestic policy making, weak links between policy making and implementation, and questionable assumptions about some of the key NPM‐inspired reform measures. Moreover, the analyses highlight a number of differences with some of the recent reform literature. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Intergovernmental relations in Nigeria: Local government and the 1979 Nigerian Constitution

This paper examines the intergovernmental relations prescribed by the Nigerian Constitution of 1979. In particular it discusses the elevated constitutional status of local government, tracing the origins of this to the 1976 local government reform. The question of how to interpret the provisions of the Constitution on the restructuring of local government and whether this is solely a State responsibility or a joint State/Federal responsibility is analysed. The article argues that the States have political and administrative responsibility for local government whereas the Federal responsibility concerns the regulation of the amount of money to be distributed to local government from the Federal Account. The Lagos State High Court judgement which supports the view that States have political and administrative responsibility for local government, but nullified the State's legislation, is extensively reported and analysed. Also discussed is the Allocation of Revenue (Federation Account, etc.) Act 1981 which both reflects and supports the view that the federal relationship to local government is defined by finance. The paper also probes the intention of the Constituent Assembly by analysing its report. The paper complements that by Smith and Owojaiye in the previous number.     

THE INFLUENCE OF E‐GOVERNMENT ON ADMINISTRATIVE DISCRETION: THE CASE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENTS IN EGYPT

One important but often understudied area of research in public administration is the effect of e‐government on administrative discretion. This article examines e‐government factors that influence administrative discretion through a survey of local governments. The focus of this study is on Egyptian local governments, which are using e‐government to modernise public service delivery. Through a survey of administrative officials in these governments, this study found evidence that e‐government factors of collaboration and organisational change influenced administrative discretion. Other common factors noted in the literature such as size of the local government and demand by citizens for e‐government did not register an effect on administrative discretion. The results of this study imply that local governments should do more to enhance e‐government to reduce administrative discretion, especially in the area of increasing collaboration. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The rise and fall of the national ‘decentralized agencies’ in Colombia

The public sector in Latin America has been characterized by the proliferation of national semi-autonomous bodies known as ‘decentralized agencies’. This article focuses on such agencies in Colombia from the 1960s onwards. Attention will be paid to their institutional proliferation and how this affected local government, particularly in the fields of water and sanitation. Such changes in state organization have not been problem free. The growth of ‘decentralized agencies’ has been associated with problems of inefficiency, administrative confusion and problems of social and political unrest. Indeed, such contradictions have resulted in the issue of decentralization being placed on the political agenda and the development of innovative and administrative reforms that could breathe new life into local government.     

Local government reform in Jamaica and Trinidad: a policy dilemma

Issues of local governance have dominated Caribbean policy agenda for the past two decades, prompting considerable thought and action on local government reform by scholars, local government practitioners and policy makers, alike. No reforms have been as ubiquitous as those of local government. Permitted by an international reformist agenda, local government reform policy is linked positively to efforts to redress incapacities of public management and administration. This article examines conceptual and empirical issues relating to implementation of local government reform in two Caribbean countries, Jamaica and Trinidad. It analyses how the vision for local governance is articulated through specific reform taxonomies and argues that, although local government reform is normatively a policy aimed at fundamental changes in intergovernmental relations, in Jamaica and Trinidad reform has led merely to adjustments in the internal administration of local government. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Importance of Trust in Government for Public Administration: The Case of Zoning

Many scholars argue that citizens with higher levels of political trust are more likely to grant bureaucratic discretion to public administrators than citizens with lower levels of trust. Trust, therefore, can relieve the tension between managerial flexibility and political accountability in the modern administrative state. Unfortunately, there is little empirical evidence showing that trust is actually associated with citizens' willingness to cede policy-making power to government. This article tests theories about political trust and citizen competence using the case of zoning. Trust in local government is found to be an important predictor of support for zoning, but trust in state government and trust in national government have no effect. These findings suggest that trust affects policy choice and helps determine how much power citizens grant to local administrators.     

Polity Size and Local Political Trust: A Quasi‐experiment Using Municipal Mergers in Denmark

This article examines the relationship between polity size and political trust in local government for which two schools of thought offer opposing expectations. The theoretical disagreement has received considerable attention and this article contributes with a dynamic perspective of how changes in polity size affect changes in citizens' political trust on the input‐side of local government. The case examined is the recent municipal mergers in Denmark which were implemented on 1 January 2007. The article reports an analysis of a panel based on a repeated survey of Danish citizens using an untreated control group design with pre‐test and post‐test. A quasi‐experimental difference‐in‐difference identification strategy is used to obtain the effect of municipal size on local political trust. The results show that changes in municipal size negatively affect local political trust, which is consistent with the expectation from the political economy theory that political trust tends to decrease with the size of the polity.     

What Do Bureaucrats Like Doing? Bureaucratic Preferences in Response to Institutional Reform

How do bureaucrats respond to administrative reform in relation to their overall administrative goals? The authors test the bureau‐shaping thesis, which holds that bureaucrats’ preferences for certain kinds of roles and tasks motivate their support for bureau reform. Drawing on attitudinal and behavioral data from a survey of English local government officials, the findings underscore how bureaucrats with different interests and motivations sort themselves into job types. Their preferences drive support for reform, which, in turn, strengthens the executive structure of English local government. Drawing on the literature on bureaucratic responses to institutional reform, the authors offer a more nuanced portrayal of bureaucratic preferences in line with the bureau‐shaping model. A key conclusion: political principals need improved empirical awareness of bureaucratic preferences when undertaking public institutional reforms.     

Swedish Bureaucracy in an Era of Change

Swedish bureaucracy combines some structural peculiarities founded on constitutional traits from the 17^th century with a clear formal division of labor between the national and local levels from the late 19^th century. These structures have mainly remained unchanged during periods of strong expansion in the first post-WWII decades and preconditions for shrinking during the 1980s and 1990s. In this article, we highlight how these changes have put stress on the bureaucracy and the public sector in general, and how demands for reform and adapting have been managed and viewed by the administrative and political camps, respectively. Social, educational, and political changes among Swedish bureaucrats and their roles are presented and analyzed. The national bureaucracy has "muddled through" and has not been subjected to radical reforms. Its working is still approved—though by no means regarded as sacred—by its administrative agents and its political principals.     

“The Big Society,” Public Expenditure,and Volunteering

The debate on volunteering has paid insufficient attention to the relationship between public spending and volunteering. The importance of this relationship is highlighted by the British government's “Big Society” plan, which asserts that an increase in volunteering will compensate for the withdrawal of public agencies and spending. This idea is based on the widely held belief that a high degree of government intervention decreases voluntary activities. This article uses a multidisciplinary approach to improve understanding of how public spending affects the decision to volunteer. A theoretical model conceptualizes this relationship in terms of time donation by employed individuals. The model is tested empirically through an econometric analysis of two survey data sets and interpretative analysis of narratives of local volunteers and public professionals. The results suggest that volunteering is likely to decline when government intervention decreases and that a collaborative approach to sustaining volunteering is needed.     

Social and Political Consequences of Administrative Corruption: A Study of Public Perceptions in Spain

Spain experienced an outbreak of public sector corruption—much of it related to the involvement of regional and local administrators and politicians in the country's urban development boom—that angered the public and sparked calls for government reform. Using data from a 2009 survey that followed these events, the authors examine the association between perceived corruption and the attitudes and behaviors of citizens, including satisfaction with government and democracy, social and institutional trust, and rule‐breaking behaviors. The findings suggest that perceptions of administrative as well as political corruption are associated with less satisfaction, lower levels of social and institutional trust, and a greater willingness to break rules. Although these survey results cannot prove causation, they are consistent with the notion that administrative and political corruption damages the legitimacy of government in the eyes of citizens and weakens the social fabric of democratic society.     

The New Public Administration: management innovations in government

Over the last two decades there have been some fundamental changes in the working of government which have resulted in major and visible management innovations in the organizational structures and systems of government aimed at delivering greater efficiency, and more responsive and flexible public services. The innovations have led to the ‘New Public Administration’. This article identifies the innovations in thinking about the role and functioning of government; about service users; about administrative structures and about staff. The article also discusses the strategies and actions employed in the new synergy between the public and private sectors, as well as the reforms in financial planning and control systems. In conclusion, the broad objectives of these reforms have been to shift emphasis from developing plans to developing key strategic areas; to shift emphasis from inward-looking systems to developing partnerships; to shift emphasis from inputs and processes to outputs and outcomes; and to shift emphasis towards managing diversity within a unified public service. Finally, managerial pragmatism and political conviction are highlighted as essential to motivating management innovation in government. (© 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)     

How governance boundaries affect regional collaboration on atmospheric governance—Evidence from China's Yangtze River Delta

Regional public affairs will become more complex when contradictions emerge between administrative boundaries and policy issues that require cross-boundary collaboration. Breaking administrative boundaries has become a prerequisite for facilitating inter-local government collaboration. This study categorizes governance boundaries into the administrative boundary and the ecology-based policy boundary and then examines how these two governance boundaries and their interactive relationship contribute to the intergovernmental collaboration network in China's regional atmospheric governance (RAG). Using data on the atmospheric governance collaboration from 30 cities in the Yangtze River Delta region from 2013 to 2018, we employ the MR-QAP model to find that cities within the same administrative boundary are more likely to collaborate and cities within the ecology-based policy boundary, compared with those beyond, are more likely to collaborate but with a lagging effect. Ecology-based policy boundary has a positive but lagging moderating effect on the contribution of the administrative boundary to the formation of intergovernmental collaboration networks.     

Advocate or Reflection? Associations and Political Culture

This article questions one of the crucial issues of the current social capital debate: do voluntary associations necessarily contribute to the creation or maintenance of a civic culture? Based upon empirical and historical evidence this article demonstrates that associations' cultural spirit simply reflects and amplifies dominant cultural traits of a given time and a given society. Changes in public culture prompt changes in associative culture, and not vice versa. In other words, contemporary associations are more democratic and more civil because they exist within societies which are themselves more democratic and civil than societies of past times. Members in associations represent society's active parts; as activists they have a higher susceptibility to cultural trends and fashions. This susceptibility is the major reason for the modest but statistically significant relationship between membership in associations and a range of cultural attitudes. Zaller's concept of political persuasion is applied to explain the Zeitgeist dependence of voluntary associations.     

ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: CONCEPTS, ISSUES, AND THE NATIONAL EXPERIENCE

This symposium examines issues related to the links between administrative reform policy and economic development policy. The symposium introduction paper consists of two parts. First, it offers an overview of the background of theoretical and conceptual issues that are important to the connection between administrative reform and economic development. The issues reviewed include the role of government in economic development, the importance of public policy and management to economic development, the contribution of development administration, and the need of administrative reform to remove bureaucratic problems and promote efficiency. Next, the introduction paper provides a brief summary of the research arguments and findings addressed in the following six articles. They include an evaluation of administrative reform in Arab world economic growth, an examination of administrative reform and economic development in Latin America and the Caribbean, a political economy analysis of policy reform in Korea, a study of the implementation of privatization strategies in India's public sector reform, a discussion of the concerns between efficiency and ethics in China's economic development, and the study of administrative and economic development in Mongolia. The implications of the research findings and the need for further study of the linkage between administrative reform and economic development are emphasized in the conclusion.     

地方政府创新的驱动模式——地方政府干部视角的考察

由地方政府推动的创新是一个国家政治体制改革的风向标,地方政府创新的发展特征可以展现出这个国家的政治文化和政治发展活力.以"中国地方政府创新奖2007-2008"年度20个地方政府创新获奖项目为研究单位,通过问卷调查收集和分析地方政府干部对本地政府创新项目的认知和态度,从创新动因、创新动力和阻力、创新价值取向、创新的参与性和可持续性五个方面出发,得出研究结论:由地方政府推动的改革创新具有突出的"低风险取向",创新过程中公共参与不足,地方领导的"精英作用"和基层政策空间是推动地方政府创新的主体力量,创新的可持续性也主要取决于能否获得体制内的认可和支持.本文的研究方法和研究结论为观察和判断中国政府改革和政治发展提供了新的视角和信息.     

Public Enterprise Reforms in the United States and the People's Republic of China: A Drift toward Constitutionalization and Departmentalization of Enterprise Management

Does globalization foster administrative convergence? Is that the case with public enterprise reform in the United States and the People's Republic of China? Few analyses compare public enterprise reform in the two countries because of their vast differences in regulatory approaches, public policy, and government structure. This article contrasts how American and Chinese public enterprises are developed, defined, and managed, along with their emerging control infrastructures This the resulting strengths and weaknesses. While vast differences remain apparent between the two countries, this essay provides insights into why those gaps persist, and may even continue to grow .     

财政分权与地方政府行政管理支出——基于中国省级面板数据的实证研究

行政管理支出具有双重属性:过多的支出不利于经济增长,使地方政府在竞争中处于劣势而不利于官员的晋升,同时有违中央政府的宏观政策目标;但能直接提高地方政府官员个人的福利水平。所以,地方政府及官员对行政管理支出存在两难选择。本文利用我国30个省(自治区、直辖市)1998—2006年的面板数据对财政分权与行政管理支出的关系进行实证研究和稳健性检验。主要结论是:在中国特色财政分权的制度环境下,地方政府在财政支出自由裁量权扩大时,总体效应是加大了行政管理支出的规模。同时,行政人员规模与行政管理支出存在显著的正相关关系。地区经济发展水平、资源禀赋、社会结构等因素对行政管理支出也有显著性的影响。在公共财政体制改革的背景下,其他公共财政支出项目(社会保障支出除外)对行政管理支出存在显著的"挤出"效应。