China has made itself the second-largest economy in the world since its reform and opening up in 1978. China’s effective governance has been deemed by many as the foundation for its economic success. In this study we want to develop a conceptual account on the Chinese model of public administration whose internal consistency may explain its effectiveness. The study is conceptual based on the evidence from the reform history of China.
By analyzing the development of Chinese public administration reform since the end of planned economy era, the authors of this paper argue that a pragmatic, self-adapting model of Chinese Public Administration has been forged as a consequence of the reform. This new model is reflected in four noticeable dimensions. First, the current public power regime sticks to the CPC’s stable control of the cadre personnel management system (Chan 2004). This political arrangement ensures the party’s ultimate authority in public decision (Jing, 2017) and, naturally, it guarantees the whole civil servant system, which is the actual policy implementer, the consistency of policies in a relatively long term. This determines how the administrative system adjusts its functions and structures, and responds to new demands and challenges. Secondly, the boundary between government and market in China has kept being relocated incrementally and experimentally. Based on the tenet of incrementalism, the state has decentralized its economic power to private market entities gradually (Goldstein, 1995) and adjusted public-private boundaries constantly. While collaborative governance has been emerging, rejuvenated state-owned enterprises are still a formidable policy instrument of the government. Thirdly, social control and social empowerment coexist as two major governance goals of government. Instead of optimizing policy solutions towards social issues, reaching consensus among crucial stakeholders has been set as the core principle for China’s public decision making, reflecting the government’s tendency towards pragmatism and acceptance of second-best solution (Chen, Zhao & Xue, 2010). Fourthly, China’s government conducts constant self-adjustments by multi-directional learning and experiment. As a demonstration project (Mei & Liu, 2014), policy experiment enables China’s government to learn about authentic details of emerging social problems, effectiveness of available instruments and public responses to certain policy alternatives and then to adapt its actions.
As a conclusion, the authors argue that Chinese public administration has been firmly shaped by its four-decade of socio-economic reforms and by its long-term global learning. It consistently reflects the fundamental political attributes of the system and has struggles to seek performance in handling pragmatic issues. Further studies of the China model may contribute significantly to our existing knowledge of public administration.
