深化乡镇机构改革的几点思考

在构建社会主义和谐社会中，乡镇机构改革在积极推进。为促进乡镇机构改革全面深入，需要对深化乡镇机构改革的深层原因、基本原则、主要思路、保障机制进行一番探讨。     

搞好乡镇机构改革

乡镇机构是我国在农村最基层的一级政权.搞好乡镇机构政革,对于深化农村改革,发展农村市场经济,保证农村社会稳定,加强党和政府对于农业和农村工作的领导,都有着十分重要的意义.随着县级机构改革试点的深入进行,改革乡镇机构的任务必然摆到了县、乡领导的面前,这是一项面广量大而且非常艰巨的工作. 一、充分认识乡镇机构改革的迫切性我国现行的乡镇机均,是在人民公社"政社合一"的基础上演变而来的,这些机构基本上是以强化产品经济为基础的集权式管理模式.在很长一段时间里,这些     

我国乡镇撤并存在的问题及对策分析

自上世纪90年代以来，乡镇撤并作为乡镇机构改革的一项重要工作，历来受到政府、民众、学术界的关注。从已经进行的乡镇撤并工作来看，初步取得了一定的成绩，但也暴露出一些不能忽视而又必须加以解决的问题。在考察世界其他国家的乡镇规模及其设置的基础上，理清我国乡镇规模及设置的历史发展脉络，对最近所进行的乡镇撤并存在的问题进行了分析，并从科学发展观的视角提出了推进乡镇撤并，必须坚持科学规划、统筹兼顾。     

乡镇政府重点履行的职能

在乡镇机构改革试点中,乡镇政府要重点履行好四项职能:促进经济发展。要把落实党的支农惠农政策、指导农村改革与发展、繁荣     

乡镇机构改革搞不好 市县乡机构改革难以成功 中央强力推动乡镇机构改革

乡镇机构改革作为2001年全国改革总框架的重要组成部分,正在各地全面展开。 乡镇机构在我国党政组织结构和行政管理系统中处在基础的位置。“上面千条线,下面一根针”,可说是对乡镇政府地位和作用的生动写照。它上对上级的各个部门,下对广大人民群众,是所有具体工作和各种矛盾的汇集点。然而,长期以来乡镇一级政府存在的机构重叠、人员臃肿、角色错位的现象和形式主义、官僚主义作风,己经严重影响党和政府与人民群众的血肉联系,妨碍社会主义市场经济体制的正常运行,并且容易滋生腐败,非改不可。 1999年当中央决定进行地方政府机构改革时,乡镇机构改革便纳入了议事日程,但却始终“只听楼梯响,不见人下来”。乡镇政府职能不适应当前经济和社会发展到了何种程度?乡镇机构改革难在哪里?乡镇政府应该具备什么样的职能?机构怎样设置才科学合理?中央要求市县乡机构改革到今年底基本完成,当前的进展情况如何?本刊组织的这组报道,对此作了阐述和披露。     

乡镇改革：从权力结构的失衡走向平衡

从1984年乡镇政府恢复重建后的20多年时间里，我国曾进行过多次乡镇改革。以乡镇撤并、精简机构、裁减人员为主要内容的机构改革是我国20年来乡镇改革的一般做法。然而，积重难返，乡镇机构在改革中日益臃肿，乡镇人员在精简中增加，乡镇一直处于“精简-膨胀-再精简-再膨胀”以及“循环改革”的怪圈，改革的目标一次次落空。     

中国乡镇政府改革的五种模式及其评析

乡镇作为中国最基层的政府机构,承担着大量的公共服务职能,肩负着上情下达、下情上传、服务农村的职责。本文对中国乡镇政府改革过程中的模式进行了分析与归纳,提出了乡镇改革的五种模式,并对乡镇改革五种模式的背景、内容、特征、绩效、问题等进行了评析,以期为中国乡镇政府改革的下一步行动提供理论指导与实践支持。     

撤并乡镇量“度”而行

结合农村税费改革，转变乡镇政府职能，适度撤并乡镇，是“十五”计划纲要中“深化农村改革”的一项重要任务。 乡镇是我国最基层的行政建制，对农村经济社会的发展和农村社会的稳定具有非常重要的影响。近年来一些地方集中地调整了乡镇行政区划，撤并了一些乡镇。最近中央关于市县乡机构改革的意见提出，在县乡机构改革过程中有条件的地方，可以在不影响社会稳定、有利于生产发展和小城镇建设的前提下，适当撤并乡镇。根据这一精神，一些省 (区、市 )结合县乡机构改革正在进行或准备进行进一步调整乡镇规模，撤并一些小乡小镇。调整、撤并…     

分流干部心态各异

在乡镇机构改革中,难度最大的恐怕就数人员分流了。面对着各级政府机构改革,相当多的乡镇干部有着不同的心态。 陕西省民政厅区划地名处处长颜珠华认为,目前,乡镇干部对乡镇机构改革有“四怕”。一怕麻烦,担心债权债务纠纷、土地延期承包难处理;二怕吃亏,担心乡镇撤并后,上级有关补助款物落空,公用设施建设没有人管;三怕分流,担心撤并乡镇,干部难安置;四怕群众上访,担心乡镇撤并影响农村稳定。乡镇干     

“乡财县管”制度对乡镇财政支出的约束效果——基于湖南两试点乡镇的实证分析

"乡财县管"制度是中央继农村税费改革之后提出的又一重大措施,旨在通过规范乡镇财政收支来缓解基层财政困难、巩固农村税费改革成果.以湖南两试点乡镇为例,从乡镇财政支出的视角对这项改革的实际效果进行了跟踪性实证研究,结果发现:"乡财县管"制度的实施规范了乡镇财政支出活动,但也提高了财务运行成本;保证了工资正常发放,但也加剧了乡镇机构运转困难与公共服务缺位;规范了乡镇预算内支出,但仍难以控制预算外支出.为此,需要通过进一步改革县乡财政体制、建立规范的县乡政府间转移支付制度、转变乡镇财政职能和推进县乡财政信息化等措施,来完善"乡财县管"制度,提高乡镇财政的运行绩效.     

Goal-Based Learning and the Future of Performance Management

All levels of government have begun to pursue results-based reforms, which assume that managers will use performance information to make better decisions. However, reforms have neglected the insights of a large and relevant literature on organizational learning. This article revisits this literature, treating results-based reform as an organizational learning mechanism and a deliberate structural effort to induce learning. From an organizational learning perspective, most results-based reforms target narrow process improvement (single-loop learning) rather than a broad understanding of policy choices and effectiveness (double-loop learning), even though the latter is more critical for long-term organizational success. Case evidence from state governments illustrates single- and double-loop learning and the importance of two frequently neglected aspects of organizational learning: learning forums—routines where performance information is deliberately examined—and the role of organizational culture in enabling or limiting learning.     

Employee Engagement as Administrative Reform: Testing the Efficacy of the OPM's Employee Engagement Initiative

Researchers have long recognized administrative reform as a constant feature of American public administration. The employee engagement initiative of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has become one of the most prominent administrative reforms underway in the federal government. Like many reforms, the veracity of claims about this reform have gone untested. This article addresses this gap by testing the relationship between the OPM's employee engagement initiative and agency performance. After establishing the psychometric validity of the OPM's Employment Engagement Index, the authors use a five‐year panel data set of federal agencies and two‐way fixed‐effects regression to test the efficacy of this prominent reform. The analysis shows that efforts to encourage employee engagement generally have the expected relationship with performance, but the relationship varies according to the components that make up the index and the organizational level at which these efforts are expended.     

Administrative reform in a changing political environment: The case of Hong Kong

Since 1989, the Hong Kong government has implemented a programme of public sector reform that is based on the principles of ‘new public management’. The reforms initially focused mainly on financial management reform, including delegating responsibilities for resource allocation; re-defining the roles of the central resource branches; setting up trading funds in departments that provide services directly to the public; and instilling a new corporate culture of service throughout the government. Some progress has been made in implementing the reforms. In 1993, the government realized that further civil service reform was necessary to support the reforms. The government proposed to delegate more authority to department heads on personnel matters; give managers more freedom to manage personnel; and simplify personnel regulations and procedures. These ‘new public management’-type reforms are usually associated with stable, relatively unchanging environments. In Hong Kong, however, the reforms have been proposed and carried out in an environment of considerable political turbulence which has both facilitated and hindered their implementation. Because of the declining legitimacy of the colonial government, British authorities may not have the political capacity to implement the reforms. Opposition from both department heads and civil service unions to aspects of the reforms has already emerged.     

The Tides of Reform Revisited: Patterns in Making Government Work, 1945–2002

The past six decades have witnessed acceleration in both the number and variety of major administrative reform statutes enacted by Congress. This increase can be explained partly by the increased involvement of Congress, a parallel decrease in activity and resistance by the presidency, and heightened public distrust toward government. At least part of the variation in the tides or philosophies of reform involves a "field of dreams" effect in which the creation of new governmental structure during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s generated increased interest in process reforms. However, part of the acceleration and variety of reform appears to be related to the lack of hard evidence of what actually works in improving government performance. Measured by federal employees' perceptions of organizational performance, what matters most is not whether organizations were reformed in the past, but whether organizations need reform in the future and can provide essential resources for achieving their mission.     

Are public organizations suffering from repetitive change injury? A panel study of the damaging effect of intense reform sequences

In the last decade, reforms in the public sector have been implemented at an ever‐increasing pace. Hereby, organizations are repetitively subject to mergers, splits, absorptions, or secessions of units; the adoption of new tasks; changes in legal status; and other structural reforms. Although evidence is largely missing in the literature, there is a growing belief that such intense reform sequences may be damaging to organizations. This article aims to fill this gap in the literature by empirically examining the existence of such repetitive change injury for public organizations. To do so, we employ organizational absenteeism rates as an indicator for repetitive change injury and link this to the reform sequences an organization experienced. Results indicate that intense reform sequences disproportionally increase organizational absenteeism rates, supporting the existence of repetitive change injury and suggesting that reforms remain rooted in organizational memories for a longer time than is often assumed.     

政府改革困境的制度结构性视角分析

目前,政府改革已成为我国经济改革和社会改革的关键,迫切需要我们深刻把握政府改革的规律.然而在现实中,政府改革面临着严重的实施困难,政府职能转变与政府机构改革双重不到位.从"国家悖论"与"政府失灵"理论出发,一般认为,政府改革面临的困境往往是由于政府制度变迁中制度供给主体缺失造成的,在理论上形成了难以深入分析的死结,也无助于政府改革的推进.认为,政府的角色冲突不是政府改革困境的根源和本质,而只是在考虑整体制度间均衡时的结果,忽略了政府的结构性特征;借鉴了公共管理理论中的政治家-官僚分析范式,以结构性分析的思路为主线,拓展了政府改革的两方博弈框架.从而认为政府改革困境的本质是政治家与官僚间在政府改革中的目标冲突与信息不对称;并分析了阻碍政府改革顺利推进的路径依赖效应与改革激励不足的问题.指出,要打破政府改革面临的困境,可以从改革的社会沟通与激励,财政约束,官僚机构的偏好与理念,以及全面长效监督等方面着手.     

Decentralization and district development planning in Zimbabwe

One of the most important dimensions of rural development policy in Zimbabwe since independence has been rural local government reform, in particular decentralization policy. Evidence from a number of recent studies is used to present a comprehensive review of Zimbabwe's experience of local government decentralization during the first eight years of independence, 1980 to 1988. Section 2 presents a brief outline of some basic concepts on decentralization which have guided the discussion. Section 3 contains a short account of the local government system inherited from the colonial era. Section 4 outlines the major post-independence reforms, that is: the 1980 District Councils Act; the 1984-85 Prime Minister's Directive on Decentralization; the 1985 Provincial Councils and Administration Act; and the 1988 Rural District Councils Act. Section 5 presents an assessment of these reforms, paying particular attention to organizational, financial and planning issues. While some important improvements have been achieved in rural Communal Areas-in particular the extension of services and increases in local revenues and popular participation-the system of local government and administration remains a dual one. Other problems include the gap between the planning and budgeting processes, continued financial dependence of district councils on central government, and a lack of serious effort by central government to make use of provincial and district development plans.     

“新公共管理运动”的困境与转型——新西兰公共部门改革的反思及参鉴

新西兰公共部门改革是"新公共管理运动"的先锋,作为"改革实验室"和"政策创新者",因其彻底性、持续性及成效性被誉为"改革的典范"。然而近年来,西方公共管理学界提出了若干质疑,甚至认为"新公共管理运动已经死亡"。本文在考察新西兰公共部门改革实践的基础上,对实践模式的局限性及时代转换的压力两方面的批判性反思进行了梳理和分析:其"公平"与"公共"价值已经失落?是"经济学帝国"的扩张?还是"新泰勒主义"的表现?亦或是随着改革主题的衰落,数字时代治理的来临。对这一改革的实践发掘和理论反思对于当前我国政府职能转换与行政改革具有重要的参鉴价值:首先,推进改革的政府需要具备必要的能力基础;公共部门改革的核心命题是转变理念,优化政府职能,提高政府的效率和效能;而改革能否顺利推进,取决于广大民众和政府之间的深入互动;此外,改革需要尊重地方政府的主动性,充分发挥其作用。     

"自委会+公共服务公司":乡镇治理体制改革的新模式

社会主义新农村建设,统筹城乡发展,需要建立一个民主而富有效率的乡镇治理体系。我国自1983年恢复乡镇一级政权以来,乡镇政府为我国农村的改革、稳定、发展做出了不少贡献。但随着经济改革的推进,乡镇政权运行中面临的诸多问题开始凸显,乡镇体制改革势在必行。本文试从当前乡政村治体制困境分析出发,归纳出当前困扰乡镇治理的两个症结,通过对学界当前几种主流改革意见的评述,拟提出一种新的乡镇治理模式,并对这种模式进行可行性分析。     

Public opinion towards welfare state reform: The role of political trust and government satisfaction

The traditional welfare state, which emerged as a response to industrialization, is not well equipped to address the challenges of today's post-industrial knowledge economies. Experts and policymakers have therefore called for welfare state readjustment towards a ‘social investment’ model (focusing on human skills and capabilities). Under what conditions are citizens willing to accept such future-oriented reforms? We point at the crucial but hitherto neglected role of citizens’ trust in and satisfaction with government. Trust and satisfaction matter because future-oriented reforms generate uncertainties, risks and costs, which trust and government satisfaction can attenuate. We offer micro-level causal evidence using experiments in a representative survey covering eight European countries and confirm these findings with European Social Survey data for 22 countries. We find that trust and government satisfaction increase reform support and moderate the effects of self-interest and ideological standpoints. These findings have crucial implications not least because they help explain why some countries manage – but others fail – to enact important reforms.