从GDP锦标赛到二元竞争:中国地方政府行为变迁的逻辑——基于1998—2006年中国省级面板数据的实证研究

在中国经济持续30多年高速发展中,地方政府是发展的主要动力,但从上世纪90年代末以来,地方政府在发展经济中所产生的负面效果越来越明显,中央出台了一系列政策去调整和引导地方政府行为,促使地方政府增加社会保障开支以促进社会公平。采用1998—2006年中国省级面板数据进行定量分析以考察地方政府行为的影响因素和变化。研究显示,地方政府在社会保障的财政开支上主要受当地经济发展状况和中央政府的重视程度影响;地方政府在回应中央政府政策调整的过程中,其行为并不同于"晋升锦标赛"所归纳的以GDP增长为主要目标的一元竞争模式,而是演变为在社会公平和经济发展的双重目标下,地方政府分别参与不同目标竞争的二元竞争模式。在既往对中国地方政府行为考察的政治激励和财政激励基础上提出了影响地方政府行为的激励结构、中央与地方的互动关系和地方所处的社会经济情况的分析框架,通过对地方政府行为变化的分析提出二元竞争模式以弥补"GDP晋升锦标赛模式"对地方政府行为解释力的不足。     

Targeting the lobbying effort: The importance of local government lobbying

Abstract Local government is subject to extensive lobbying, which is reasonable given the greater importance of the local public sector in large welfare states. Most of the scholarly attention has been focused on lobbying at the national level, often addressing the impact of interest groups on public policies. This article discusses a decision–making model where interest groups optimize their lobbying efforts given the way that different local governments and individual politicians respond to these activities. A number of propositions are tested on the basis of data from Norwegian local government. Contrary to prior theorizing, we do not find that representatives seeking re–election are contacted more frequently by interest groups. Interest groups target their lobbying activities toward politicians who are members of the relevant council committees, and they exert stronger pressure on members of the executive board and active representatives who perceive themselves as influential. Inter–municipal differences are also of importance: The lobbying activities are more intensive where electoral participation is low and in the larger urban municipalities, while the size of legislatures and the strength of the local political leadership affect lobbying efforts negatively. Interest groups tend to be more active in the richer local governments. The demands of the residential population impact weakly on lobbying efforts.     

Targeting the lobbying effort: The importance of local government lobbying

Local government is subject to extensive lobbying, which is reasonable given the greater importance of the local public sector in large welfare states. Most of the scholarly attention has been focused on lobbying at the national level, often addressing the impact of interest groups on public policies. This article discusses a decision–making model where interest groups optimize their lobbying efforts given the way that different local governments and individual politicians respond to these activities. A number of propositions are tested on the basis of data from Norwegian local government. Contrary to prior theorizing, we do not find that representatives seeking re–election are contacted more frequently by interest groups. Interest groups target their lobbying activities toward politicians who are members of the relevant council committees, and they exert stronger pressure on members of the executive board and active representatives who perceive themselves as influential. Inter–municipal differences are also of importance: The lobbying activities are more intensive where electoral participation is low and in the larger urban municipalities, while the size of legislatures and the strength of the local political leadership affect lobbying efforts negatively. Interest groups tend to be more active in the richer local governments. The demands of the residential population impact weakly on lobbying efforts.     

Local government grants and income tax revenue: Redistributive politics in Norway 1900–1990

An important aspect of the welfare state is public provision of private goods, primarily education and health care. In Norway the provision of these services has been organized through the local public sector. The development of the welfare state has to a large extent been the development of welfare communes. The important revenue sources of the local and county governments, grants and income tax revenue, have been controlled nationally, and the paper addresses the determinants of these revenues during 1900–1990. The approach combines a demand model of local public services emphasizing price and income-elasticities with a political economy model of central government ideology and strength. The decision making is understood as bargaining between the government and interest groups, and the political structure consequently is of importance for the policy outcome. The analysis shows how politics matter, and the results indicate that a minority coalition government implies 30% more grant and income tax revenue to local and county governments than one party majority in the long run.     

Orchestrating silence,winning the votes: Explaining variation in media freedom during elections

Restrictions on media freedom play a prominent role in the survival of incumbents in hybrid regimes. But while scholars agree that governments limit media freedom to punish opponents and mobilize supporters, less is known about the electoral incentives that explain the timing and location of restrictions. Using original microdata on government attempts to prevent the dissemination of information from Venezuela (2002–2015), I show that electoral competition at the local and national levels shape patterns of government-led restrictions on media freedom. At the local level, I find that differences in the opposition's strength incentivize governments to use restrictions to demobilize opponents where they are strongest, target marginal districts during local elections, and maintain dominance in their strongholds. At the national level, I show that as threats to the government party's primacy increase, so does the effect of local electoral competition on the hazard of restrictions.     

Non‐Governmental Monitoring of Local Governments Increases Compliance with Central Mandates: A National‐Scale Field Experiment in China

Central governments face compliance problems when they rely on local governments to implement policy. In authoritarian political systems, these challenges are pronounced because local governments do not face citizens at the polls. In a national‐scale, randomized field experiment in China, we test whether a public, non‐governmental rating of municipal governments' compliance with central mandates to disclose information about the management of pollution increased compliance. We find significant and positive treatment effects on compliance after only one year that persist with reinforcement into a second post‐treatment year. The public rating appears to decrease the costs of monitoring compliance for the central government without increasing public and media attention to pollution, highlighting when this mode of governance is likely to emerge. These results reveal important roles that nonstate actors can play in enhancing the accountability of local governments in authoritarian political systems.     

Making Good Use of Partners: Differential Effects of Managerial Networking in the Social Care Domain

ABSTRACT

Public managers engage in networking relationships with a wide variety of external actors and organizations from which they can draw different types of support and resources. Most empirical studies on managerial networking merely present different intensities of external networking in general, as if it were a unidimensional concept. In practice, however, public managers strategically differentiate between functional or task-related groups of external partners, based on the specific policy context. Moreover, such differentiation in networking behavior can be expected to systematically impact agency and public program performance outcomes. This article derives contextualized hypotheses on how managerial networking affects the performance of Dutch local governments in the social care domain. Multilevel structural equation analyses of 3,257 social care clients in 71 local governments provide evidence that bilateral client-interest networking is more beneficial to the Social Support Act's overall goal of improving the level of social participation of clients than professional networking. Moreover, the effect is indirect: managerial networking with client interest groups improves the physical self-reliance of clients, enabling them to engage in social activities.     

地方政府创新与治理变迁——中国地方政府创新案例的比较研究

经验表明,20世纪90年代以来,社会转型带来的权威危机和管理性危机对中国地方政府公共权力结构与功能等方面形成了严峻的挑战。面对危机情势,各级地方政府在公共管理的权力结构、制度与技术安排上进行了多项治理创新,通过对地方政府的治理创新的比较分析,笔者认为,中国地方政府的创新实践推动了地方治理变迁,地方治理正趋于取代地方管理。但是,这种可选择性替代路径仍然是地方政府主导型的,最终起作用的仍然是地方政府。地方政府的创新符合整体性改革的发展方向,并将有力地推动改革向纵深发展。     

Making economic adjustment work: The politics of policy implementation

This article identifies tentative lessons about successful political management of stabilization and structural adjustment policies in developing countries. It addresses three basic questions: 1) What is the purpose of stabilization and structural adjustment policies and what specific measures are usually undertaken? 2) Who, in theory, is supposed to benefit or lose from such policies and who, in actual practice, supports or opposes them? 3) How have governments in developing countries successfully managed the supporters and opponents of adjustment policies? The article concentrates in detail on how the governments of Panama, Costa Rica and Guatemala managed the actual supporters and opponents of these policies between 1982 and 1987, based on interviews with policy makers, official documents and content analysis of media sources, with the aim of determining what measures were implemented, who protested or supported them, and what the government did to build support or minimize opposition. The lessons from these three experiences are tied to the more general literature on successful political management of stabilization and structural adjustment.     

Privatizing Public Nursing Homes: Examining the Effects on Quality and Access

This study examines the effects of local government divestment on quality and access to care for Medicaid recipients in privatized nursing homes. The central hypotheses are concerned with the impact of new ownership on both aspects of organizational performance. The analysis indicates that privatization of nursing homes involves a complex set of trade-offs. Changing organizational ownership to for-profit increases the number of regulatory violations, decreases residents' quality of life, but does not influence Medicaid admissions. While no decline in quality is found among divested nonprofit facilities, access to care declines in the comparison groups of nonprofit homes. The author concludes that as counties minimize their roles as service producers, federal, state and local governments should enhance their regulatory capacity by improving quality assurance mechanisms and providing adequate reimbursement for low-income clients.     

Quality of government and regional competition: A spatial analysis of subnational regions in the European Union

Building on previous work on competition networks and governmental performance among British local governments, this article investigates the diffusion of government quality across subnational regions of Europe through strategic interaction with neighbouring regions or competitor regions more generally. The article demonstrates the presence of spatial interdependence using standard spatial regression models and controlling for common explanations of quality of government. In particular for regions with high levels of autonomy from the national government, there is clear adjustment in government quality to be seen in response to disparities with competitor regions. The article further investigates the intensity of this geographical effect separately in the north and south of Europe in order to estimate the potential for virtuous or vicious cycles of good governance in the two regions, respectively. It is found that while regions in the north develop relatively independently of each other but respond to competitive pressure across Europe, in the south regions demonstrate a higher level of local interdependence, increasing the possibility of virtuous cycles – but also of vicious ones.     

制度竞合：中央与地方关系演进的必然趋势

地方政府通过制度创新激活了当地经济，但中央对这种创新行为回应的滞后甚至默许又造成中央与地方之间的制度罅隙，进而形成地方保护。因此，必须通过分化政府职能、调整权力结构、健全决策过程以及重构绩效评估机制来实现中央与地方的制度竞合。     

中国地方政府绩效外部民主评议模式——对南京市“万人评议机关”再研究

通过绩效评估可以提高政府效率，促使政府更好地承担社会管理、公共服务等各项职能。对于地方政府，外部民主评议模式比传统的上级政府外部监督模式更具针对性和可操作性。中国现阶段通过民主评议的方式可以扩大民泉有序地参与政治，推动地方政府更积极地承担地方建设发展责任，而不是一味靠上级政府的压力与刺激进行地方治理。     

Competition and Monopoly Power in Local Government: An Extension of Caplan (2001)

Caplan (2001) shows that because land is asource of immobile wealth, localgovernments can use the property tax toavoid competitive pressures of the Tieboutmodel, allowing them to deviate fromcitizens' preferences. In this comment Ishow that the property tax is not the onlytax local governments can use to avoidcompetitive pressure. Most taxes placed onproperty owners allow local governments toextract some rents despite perfect citizenmobility.     

The Size Efficiency of Rural Governments: The Case of Low-Volume Rural Roads

The deterioration of the supply of public infrastructure throughoutthe United States has been found to be accelerating. The reasonmost often cited for the increasing rates of deterioration isthe lack of available funding, or fiscal stress, present inmany local governments. A popular short-term solution to fiscalstress is to defer infrastructure repairs and/or replacementprograms. This is particularly true in rural areas where a decliningagricultural base and redirected federal policy have placedsignificant downward pressure on revenues. The search for along-term solution has renewed the debate about the optimalsize of local governments. The research reported here examinesthe issue of size efficiency in the production of low-volumerural roads in the Midwest. At issue is the ability of Midwesttownships to realize size economies. Overall, size inefficiencieswere identified which suggests that cost savings may be realizedfrom the reorganization of the production of low-volume roadservices.     

Local Government Restructuring: Privatization and Its Alternatives

Local government restructuring should no longer be viewed as a simple dichotomy between private and public provision. A 1997 survey of chief elected township and county officials in New York shows that local governments use both private and public sector mechanisms to structure the market, create competition, and attain economies of scale. In addition to privatization and inter‐municipal cooperation, two alternative forms of service delivery not previously researched—reverse privatization and governmental entrepreneurship—are analyzed here. Logistic regression on the 201 responding governments differentiates the decision to restructure from the level and complexity of restructuring. Results confirm that local governments are guided primarily by pragmatic concerns with information, monitoring, and service quality. Political factors are not significant in the restructuring process and unionization is only significant in cases of simple restructuring (privatization or cooperation used alone). Fiscal stress is not a primary motivator, but debt limits are associated with more complex forms of restructuring. Restructuring service delivery requires capacity to take risks and is more common among experienced local officials in larger, higher‐income communities. Restructuring should be viewed as a complex, pragmatic process where governments combine public and private provision with an active role as service provider and market player. © 2001 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

The Status of State Governments in Nigeria's Federalism

Nigerian states have almost completely lost their autonomy.The Babangida years and, in particular, 1991–1992, havewitnessed unprecedented reductions in states' powers. The entrenchmentof local government autonomy and the loss of some state powersto local authorities, the reduction of states' financial powersand their share of the Federation Account, as well as the decreeof a highly centralized two-party system, all have, within theframework of structural economic adjustment and the transitionto civil rule (expected to be completed in January 1993), worsenedthe position of the state governments. However, with the establishmentof civilian governance in the states and the return of constitutionalgovernment after January 1993, the state governments may reasserttheir autonomy.     

Unintended Consequences of Local Sales Tax: Capitalization of Sales Taxes into Housing Prices

Local governments are under pressure to look for alternatives to property taxes as their main revenue source. One response has been to adopt local sales taxes. Prior studies offer little guidance on whether and how much local governments enhance their revenue capacity with local sales taxes. This article unveils the underlying mechanisms by exploring the capitalization of sales taxes into housing prices as a property tax base measure. The empirical analysis reveals a capitalization of local sales taxes into housing prices, indicating the reduction of property tax bases in higher sales tax areas from the long-term perspective. The findings suggest that a sales tax rate increase might not raise local revenue capacity as much as policymakers intend.     

Local government involvement in national development planning; guidelines for project selection based upon Nigeria's Fourth Plan experience

This article is concerned with effective local government participation at the project selection stage in the development planning process. The context for analysis is Nigeria's first experience with local involvement in national planning. A novel evaluation scheme is elaborated and applied in assessing the proposals submitted by two local governments, Kaduna and Bauchi, for inclusion in the Fourth National Development Plan. The findings reveal serious distortions in both local development plans and demonstrate the utility of employing an uncomplicated multidimensional impact analysis scheme in the evaluation and selection of project proposals.     

Participatory Budgeting in Australian Local Government: An Initial Assessment and Critical Issues

Participatory budgeting (PB), a process whereby governments seek direct input from citizens into financial decisions, is gaining a foothold in the community engagement practices of Australian local governments. Following questions of definition, we survey the theoretical terrain, locating PB within several components of local democracy. We then provide details of six PB processes in New South Wales, Victoria, and Western Australia. We identify several questions for the future of PB in Australian local governments, including the role of deliberative practices as part of the broader work of councils, the issue of the adaptability of councils and leaders, the impacts upon state and local governments, and the role of third parties. The article concludes by reflecting on how PB sits with democratic practices at the local level if it continues to be implemented.