Chinese Public Administration Review Volume 9 Issue 2

Review Administration Public Chinese Volume 9Issue2 CPAR ispublishedby the Institute forPublic atSuffolk Service University When Western Meet Administrative Theories Leizhen Zang,ChenguangSun Journal Publications(1989–2017) in China: A CriticalReviewofChinese Top Corruption and Anti-Corruption Research Na Tang, ZiDing,Yanni Xu Original Articles CPARGaps, andGovernmentBehaviors Bureaucratic Accountability,Performance Liang Ma,StateGovernanceby Targets: Jie Gao ReviewsBook California StateGovernment Performance: ManagementSystemsin The Emergence andDivergence in Richard F. Callahan Ideas Governing theNeighborhoodwithConfucian Wai-Hang Yee, Weijie Wang, Terry L.Cooper China’s GovernmentReforms:Dotheyfit? | December2018 148 128 113 99 79 Chinese Public Editors Administration CPAR Review

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Marc Holzer, Suffolk University - Boston

EDITOR Elaine Yi Lu, City University of New York - John Jay College

ASSOCIATE EDITORS Huafang Li, Grand Valley State University Liang Ma, Renmin University of China Wenxuan Yu, Nanyang Technological University

SECTION EDITORS Jesse Campbell, Incheon National University, South Korea Gang Chen, University at Albany, State University of New York Heungsuk Choi, Korea University Taehee Kim, Seoul National University of Science and Technology, South Korea Jesper Schlæger, Sichuan University Tsai-Tsu Su, National Taiwan University Chun Yuan Wang, Central Police University, Taiwan Alfred Muluan Wu, National University of Singapore

ASSISTANT EDITORS Min-Hyu Kim, Rutgers University - Newark Mallory Sullivan, Suffolk University - Boston Hanjin Mao, Rutgers University - Newark Jonathan Wexler, Rutgers University - Newark Alisa Marie Raymond, Suffolk University - Boston Chengxin Xu, Rutgers University - Newark Brandon Roberts, Suffolk University - Boston

PRODUCTION EDITOR Dongfang Gaozhao, Florida State University

EDITORIAL BOARD China (Mainland) Richard Walker, City University of Hong Kong Yilin Hou, Syracuse University Jing Bao, Chinese Public Administration Shaoguang Wang, Chinese University of Edward Jennings, University of Kentucky Society Kong Kong Donald Klingner, University of Colorado Guoxian Bao, Lanzhou University Taiwan Zhiyong Lan, Arizona State University Zhenming Chen, Xiamen University Chung-yuang Jan, National Chengchi Weiwei Lin, Rutgers University - Newark Keyong Dong, Renmin University of China University Suzanne Piotrowski, Rutgers University - Newark Xiaoping Gao, Chinese Public South Korea Allan Rosenbaum, Florida International Administration Society Yun-Won Hwang, Chung-Ang University University Taijun Jin, Soochow University Chan-Gon Kim, Vice Mayor Central District David H. Rosenbloom, American University Yijia Jing, Fudan University Pan S. Kim, Yonsei University - Wonju E.S. Savas, City University of New York - Jiannan Wu, Shanghai Jiao Tong University M. Jae Moon, Yonsei University Baruch College Shuzhang Xia, Sun Yat-sen University Netherlands Zixiang (Alex) Tan, Syracuse University Xiaolin Xu, Huazhong University of Science Peter B. Boorsma, University of Twente Jonathan West, University of Miami and Technology United States Hua Xu, Auburn University at Montgomery Lan Xue, Tsinghua University Barry Bozeman, Arizona State University Mengzhong Zhang, University of Kaifeng Yang, Renmin University of China Bin Chen, City University of New York - Massachusetts Boston Chengfu Zhang, Renmin University of China Baruch College Yahong Zhang, Rutgers University - Newark Guanghui Zhou, Jilin University Gregory Chow, Princeton University Zhirong Zhao, University of Minnesota Qianwei Zhu, Fudan University Jeanne Marie Col, City University of New New Zealand Hong Kong York - John Jay College Evan Berman, Victoria University of Wellington Hon Chan, City University of Hong Kong Terry L. Cooper, University of Southern United Kingdom Ian Holliday, The University of Hong Kong California Daniel Harris, Overseas Development Institute Martin Painter, City University of Hong Kong Kenneth W. Foster, Concordia College Politics and Government King K. Tsao, Chinse University of Hong Kong Mary Hamilton, University of Nebraska Volume 9 Issue 2, December 2018 Table of Contents

79-98 Corruption and Anti-Corruption Research in China: A Critical Review of Chinese Top Journal Publications (1989–2017) by Na Tang, Zi Ding, Yanni Xu

This article synthesizes a cross-disciplinary literature review of 205 articles from Chinese top journals and presents a comprehensive picture of corruption and anti-corruption research in a non-Western setting. By attempting to describe how corruption negatively affects the public administration and how improved public administration can mitigate corruption, this study finds that the Chinese research is gradually shifting from qualitative analysis to quantitative research but that empirical research needs to be developed further. In addition, in the review, human greed, economic transition, institutional omissions, a weak civil society, and social and cultural traditions are found to be the main causes of corruption in China. The effect of corruption on economic development differs on the basis of the institutional situation and social environment, but the influence of corruption on social stability and public satisfaction with the government is often negative in China. In addition, the anti-corruption mechanism has changed from the campaign against corruption (1950s–1980s) to institutionalized anti-corruption (1990s) and finally to anti-corruption through new media platforms (since the 2000s). Evaluations of anti-corruption effects are still lacking in China, especially in empirical studies. The following three aspects deserve further study: (1) the corruption mechanisms, (2) the impact of the establishment of new state institutions on anti-corruption, and (3) the relationship between political factors and anti-corruption efforts in China.

99-112 When Western Administrative Theories Meet China’s Government Reforms: Do they fit? by Leizhen Zang, Chenguang Sun

Embedded in the epoch of globalization, initiatives of governmental reforms among countries are intertwined, especially when these countries seek to gain wider experience from their counterparts’ suggestible pathways. However, scholars are inclined to oversimplify their analytical frameworks when conducting comparative research on administrative reforms. This paper intends to interpret and analyze such simplification of comparative studies which might result in the continuing promotion of a failing approach or the aimless transplantation of other countries’ reform experience and theories, the phenomenon not uncommon in studies of China’s administrative practices. This paper reveals an overlooked context, namely, that the adaptation of international theories of institutional reform has not achieved the intended goals in China’s case. Through our analysis, we aim to use China’s example to highlight the need to consider its social and cultural context in adapting Western administrative theories, and to suggest how scholars can better advise the government in the process of administrative reforms.

113-127 Governing the Neighborhood with Confucian Ideas by Wai-Hang Yee, Weijie Wang, Terry L. Cooper

Attributes of communities have long been considered a major influence on people’s self-organized governing behavior (Ostrom 2005). Does Confucianism, a widely shared set of traditional ideas, inform Chinese homeowners in governing their neighborhoods? Based on in-depth interviews with 27 homeowner association (HOA) organizers from 16 neighborhoods in Beijing, we found evidence suggesting that their governing Volume 9 Issue 2, December 2018 Table of Contents Table of Contents

behaviors were informed by traditional Confucian conceptual distinctions and normative expectations: Stringent expectations were found on HOA organizers to serve with purely “public” motives and renounce “private” ones; neighborhood management, meanwhile, was not merely considered as a means for improving living conditions, but a patriotic act of serving the country. Arguably, these meanings corresponded to the Confucian ideal of junzi and its guide to moral cultivation. They helped sustain homeowners’ participation and promote a social norm that maintained accountability for their behaviors. The findings suggest further research on neighborhood governance, and contribute to the reforming governance of contemporary China.

128-147 The Emergence and Divergence in Performance: Management Systems in California State Government by Richard F. Callahan An understudied aspect of performance management systems is how performance management systems emerge in public agencies. This research focuses on the emergence of performance management systems, studying two cases with divergent outcomes in the State of California. The first case study is about the Performance Management Council, which included the voluntary participation of more than 20 California state agencies, departments, and divisions. The second case study is about the Department of Toxic Substances Control within the California Environmental Protection Agency. These cases, which impacted 35 million residents in a state with a $200 billion annual budget, potentially offer findings valuable to nations and to large sub-national units of government such as large states, districts, and provinces. This research offers three contributions to public sector performance management research literature. First, it addresses a gap in the understanding of how performance management systems emerge through dialogue and learning forums. Second, the research extends the study of performance management to the policy arenas of environmental protection, water resources, and other policy domains typically not researched in performance management. Third, the research connects performance management to the research on the reform of public agencies, diffusion of practices, and organizational change.

148-149 Book Review: Liang Ma, State Governance by Targets: Bureaucratic Accountability, Performance Gaps, and Government Behaviors by Jie Gao State Governance by Targets: Bureaucratic Accountability, Performance Gaps, and Government Behaviors, by Liang Ma, provides a timely and valuable discussion on this topic. It enhances our understanding of key factors in the establishment of certain types of performance targets in Chinese local governments. It also provides insightful discussion on the challenges of the reforms, with a focus on the extent to which the evaluation system affects bureaucratic accountability and in what ways it changes government behaviors.

Chinese Public Administration CPAR Review CPAR is published by the Institute for Public Service at Suffolk University. This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2017S1A3A2067636) Chinese Public Administration CPAR Review Volume 9 Issue 2, December 2018

Corruption and Anti-Corruption Research in China: A Critical Review of Chinese Top Journal Publications (1989–2017) Na Tang*, Zi Ding†, Yanni Xu^ * Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China; † People’s Public Security University of China, China; ^ Beijing Sport University, China

INTRODUCTION

ow to address corruption is a global public transparency score has decreased by four points after management concern, as in a transitional rising for four consecutive years. An impression Hauthoritarian country, the features exhibited among the Chinese people is that “corruption seems to by China on the path involving corruption and anti- be growing” (Guo, 2017). How can this contradictory corruption efforts, are quite different from those in the situation exist? The corruption of Chinese officials has developed countries. After the reform and opening up, characteristics not only of developing countries but and especially since Xi Jinping became the President also of countries in transition. in 2013, China has significantly strengthened its anti- corruption efforts from strategy to practice and on all The research on Chinese corruption and anti-corruption government levels. As of June 2017, the country has efforts in international journals mainly comes punished 1.343 million street-level party cadres since from Europe, North America, and other developed the last 5 years (Central Commission for Discipline economies. As published in Chinese journals, Chinese Inspection of the CPC, 2017). According to an scholars’ researches on corruption and anti-corruption evaluation by Transparency International, China’s are unknown to the international academic community.

This research was supported by the funding from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, the Youth Project of the National Natural Science Funds of China (No.71804185), the Youth Project of the National Social Science Fund of China (No.17CGL077) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No.2018JKF608). The authors are grateful to the insightful suggestions given by Professors Alfred M. Wu, Ciqi Mei, Xufeng Zhu, Elaine Yi Lu, Yahong Zhang, and the editor of this journal Jesper Schlæger.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Zi Ding, School of Management, People’s Public Security University of China, Xicheng District, Beijing, China, 100038. Contact: [email protected]. View this article at cpar.net

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Table 1. Description of Selected Periodicals

Number Periodical Impact Factors Articles 1 Management World（管理世界） 4.75 9 2 Journal of Public Management （公共管理学报） 4.45 9 3 Chinese Public Administration （中国行政管理） 2.90 48 4 China Public Administration Review1（公共管理评论） NA 2 5 Economic Research Journal（经济研究） 10.60 16 6 Comparative Economic & Social Systems（经济社会体制比较） 2.33 43 7 CASS Journal of Political Science(政治学研究) 3.60 27 8 Social Sciences in China（中国社会科学） 7.14 7 9 Sociological Studies（社会学研究） 4.56 7 10 Chinese Journal of Sociology（社会） 4.54 2 11 Journal of Public Administration2（公共行政评论） 1.92 14 12 Chinese Journal of Law （法学研究） 8.38 7 13 Law Review（法学评论） 3.22 13 14 Journalism & Communication（新闻与传播研究） 2.16 1 Including management, economics, politics, sociology, law, and communication Total 205 There is a gap to be filled. This paper collected 205 academic publications have higher requirements on articles from 14 Chinese top journals in the fields of novelty and better timeliness, which can effectively management, economics, law, politics, communication, reflect the current situation of academic research, than and sociology. The authors come from universities, other academic achievements (Li & Li, 2004). research institutions, or public management practice, and they are all well-known scholars or officials When selecting Chinese articles, we searched for in China. By studying “how does corruption affect “corruption,” “civil servants’ corruption,” “anti- public administration?” and “how can a good public corruption,” “corruption strategy,” and “corruption administration mitigate corruption?”, this article makes policy” in the China National Knowledge a systematic review of the research on corruption and Infrastructure (CNKI), which is the most widely used anti-corruption in China in the past three decades. and authoritative literature database in China. We collected articles from the 14 most authoritative or METHODS influential journals in this field, resulting in a database of 252 articles. The selection is based on the impact To provide a roadmap for Chinese corruption and anti- factors of academic periodicals provided by CNKI, corruption research, we selected academic publications which is an established measure of journal quality to conduct a literature review, because firstly, and authoritativeness. On the basis of the research publications are regarded as the best representative questions of this paper, we manually reviewed the expression of researchers. Secondly, peer-reviewed abstracts or the full text and excluded papers on ancient

1 The journal China Public Administration Review was first published in 2004, but it was not included in the Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index until 2012, therefore, there are no statistics on its impact factor by CNKI yet. Even so, the journal is sponsored by the School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua University, and is gaining more and more attention in China thanks to Tsinghua University’s influence in Chinese academia. Several of its researchers are members of influential think tanks of the Chinese government.Therefore, we also include this journal in our database.

2 Although the impact factor of Journal of Public Administration is not so high, yet the journal has 14 articles related to corruption and anti-corruption studies, including pieces on anti-corruption by well-known scholars such as Xing Ni, Ting Gong, Yong Guo, Kaifeng Yang, and Hui Li. Accordingly, we also include this journal in our database.

80 • Chinese Public Administration Review Volume 9 Issue 2, December 2018 corruption, anti-corruption in the private sector, and and anti-corruption research at different times (Ni anti-corruption in foreign countries. As a result, we & Chen, 2011). Our time span for the literature is obtained a sample of 205 articles from 14 influential between 1989 and 2017. Research before 1989 is Chinese journals from January 1989 to December scarce, and the electronic versions of journals are 2017 (Table 1). difficult to obtain. In contrast, studies published since the 1990s are numerous and accessible. Therefore, Eligibility Criteria and Coding Method we conduct a literature review based on articles from After creating the literature database for this review, the late 1980s and forward. The coding method used we developed the following eligibility criteria (Wang in this paper was determined by the authors through & Jiang, 2009; Ni & Chen, 2011; Li et al. 2011) to numerous face-to-face discussions. In addition, during focus on the research issues to facilitate high-quality the entire coding process, the researchers used face- work. to-face meetings, WeChat videos, and telephone calls to communicate whenever the authors experienced Research topic. The title of the paper, including the problems or confusion to ensure consistency in the terms “corruption,” “civil servants’ corruption,” “anti- coding. Finally, the coding results were aggregated corruption,” “corruption strategy,” and “corruption into a single spreadsheet, discussed during regular policy.” group meetings, and reviewed by all the authors.

Publication status. A total of 14 top periodicals were RESEARCH FINDINGS selected on the basis of the academic representation, academic influence, quality of the papers, and impact Increase in Relevant Academic Research factors of the journals, combined with suggestions of The uneven numbers of research articles over the reviewers. These periodicals publish peer-reviewed sample period (1989–2017) reveal an interesting journal articles with high quality, and the authors interaction between academic research and policy are well-known experts and scholars in the field of practice. Before the 1990s, Chinese corruption and Chinese corruption and anti-corruption practice and anti-corruption research remained relatively scarce. research. Some authors are government officials on the Around the 2000s, however, Chinese scholars paid front line of making and implementing anti-corruption increasing attention to the study of corruption, and policies; some authors are researchers in think-tanks; the number of studies reached a peak. This case while the majority are scholars with full-time jobs in reflects, to some extent, that with China’s accession prestigious universities. A systematic reviewing of to the World Trade Organization (WTO), international those articles would be meaningful for both scholars concerns about the corruption phenomenon in China and practitioners who are interested in corruption and have attracted increasing attention from scholars. In anti-corruption research, and help them to understand 2003, anti-corruption research showed another crest, the progress of this research field in China. which may also reflect the academic research effect of China’s ratification of the United Nations Convention Research design. Similar to a review article by against Corruption. Since the government’s Maria Cucciniello published in Public Administration institutional reform in 2008, when China significantly Review (2017), this paper uses several classifications increased its anti-corruption efforts and related news extracted from the full text: theoretical or empirical reports in the state-controlled media, public attention research, qualitative research, quantitative studies, in government operations and official corruption also and experimental research. obviously rose. Thus, corruption issues and anti- corruption efforts have gradually become major topics Publication year. This specification refers to the studied by Chinese theoretical and practical experts time when the article was published. This indicator is (Figure 1). designed to analyze the number of articles on corruption

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Figure 1. Corruption and Anti-corruption Publications in the Selected Chinese Academic Journals, 1989-2017

Figure 2. Research Methods Used in Corruption and Anti-corruption Publications

Note: As there was no relevant paper published in the selected 14 journals in 1992, the value of this year is missing in the figure.

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Changing Research Methods We can obtain some interesting findings from the Chinese articles have changed from purely theoretical overall trend of authors’ affiliations in 1989–2017 research to a combination of theoretical and empirical (Figure 3). In our database, only one publication, from research.3 Before 2000, none of the studies used the government-affiliated research institution in 1991, empirical methods, and 1/5 of the articles were was available, and no literature existed on corruption written by government officials on the basis of their and anti-corruption research in 1992. Generally, in subjective experiences or job requirements, which the 1990s, numerous authors of corruption and anti- mainly used theoretical research. Since then, with the corruption literature came from government-affiliated country’s accession to the WTO and the increased research institutions, national and provincial party opportunities for international communication for schools, and even the civil service. After 2005, the Chinese scholars, researchers gradually began to apply authors came mainly from universities. One reason empirical research methods. In recent years, with the is that our selected journals are peer-reviewed, rapid development of disciplines, such as economics, and university researchers are their main source. politics, sociology, law, psychology, communication, Furthermore, this case reflects the specialization and and public administration, Chinese scholars have standardization trend in corruption and anti-corruption adopted further diverse perspectives and research research, and even in social science research in China, methods for in-depth studies on corruption and anti- changing from the previous countermeasures and corruption efforts (Figure 2). theoretical research to professional and empirical research at present. Authors’ Characteristics On the basis of the characteristics of the authors, 160 On the basis of the titles, 93 of 205 articles were of 205 papers were written by university researchers, written by professors or researchers, accounting accounting for 78.05% of our total literature. Of the for 45.37% of the total. The authors of 40 articles total number of articles, 17 (8.29% of the total) were are associate professors or researchers, accounting written by researchers from the Chinese Academy for 19.51% of the total. In addition, 20 articles of Social Sciences, the national and provincial party were written by assistant professors or researchers, schools, and the national and provincial Academy of accounting for 9.76% of the literature. In terms of Governance. Furthermore, 15 articles (7.32%) were academic background, the authors of 156 papers have authored by researchers at government-affiliated a doctorate degree, accounting for 76.1% of the total research institutes. Another seven articles (3.41%) 205 articles. The authors of 12 articles have a master’s were written by civil servants, including the staff of degree, accounting for 5.85% of the total. Notably, the General Office of the State Council of the People’s these authors are mostly more mature researchers Republic of China, the secretary of the Inspection (Table 2). Commission of an eastern city, and the mayor of a southern city. Transformational Research Topics In the 1990s, the research of Chinese scholars was Therefore, although universities and other research mainly focused on the corruption phenomenon, institutes often perform most of the academic including the concept’s definition and the types of research, the corruption and anti-corruption issue has behavior involved (Zhang & Yang, 2013). The research attracted extensive attention among the entire Chinese in this stage was closely related to the conditions academia and practice. caused by China’s national economic and social transformation at the time, and the main features were 3 The theoretical research defined in this paper refers to studies that theories, countermeasures, and problem orientation. describe the relationship between various factors through theoretical In the early 2000s, Chinese scholars not only focused analysis or model construction. Empirical research refers to the studies conducted by researchers to propose and verify theoretical hypotheses on corruption but also analyzed its causes and related by collecting observational data to explain the relationship between institutional defects. Scholars also suggested studying various factors.

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Figure 3. Overall Trend of Authors’ Affiliations in the Selected Journals (1989-2017)

Note: As there was no relevant paper published in the selected 14 journals in 1992, the value of this year is missing in the figure. Not identified means that the authors did not specify their affiliations in the paper.

Table 2. Title and Academic Background of the Authors

Author's professional levels Articles Proportion (%) Author’s degree Articles Proportion (%) Professor/Researcher 93 45.37 Doctorate degree 156 76.10 Associate professor/Associate 40 19.51 Master's degree 12 5.85 researcher Assistant professor/Assistant 20 9.76 Bachelor's degree 1 0.49 researcher Not identified or no academic 52 25.37 Not identified 36 17.56 identity Total 205 100 Total 205 100

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Table 3. Analytical Framework

Category Indicators Extraction Basic information Journal, publication year, author, title Title page of the article 1. Theoretical, empirical Research methods Abstract or full text of the article 2. Qualitative, quantitative, experimental We use two broad classifications, and within each category, we specify the factors as follows: 1. Basic research: definition, type, measurement, How corruption affects public reasons and sources of corruption Full text of the article administration 2. Corruption and public administration: (1) corruption and economic development (2) corruption and social stability (3) corruption and public perception We use three broad classifications: (1) anti-corruption strategy changes How public administration can (2) mechanism and participation changes Full text of the article mitigate corruption (3) evaluation of the effect of anti-corruption efforts international experience, especially during the time accounting for 1.46%. Except for several studies from of the government’s institutional reforms in 1998 and the perspective of economics that have a standardized 2008, the accession to the WTO in 2001, and China’s content such as literature review, theoretical ratification of the United Nations Convention against assumption, model construction, data collection, and Corruption in 2003. Since the middle 2000s, by using empirical results, numerous articles do not include the above mentioned studies as a basis, Chinese these elements (Ni, 2011). This condition not only has scholars have paid increasing attention to scientific led to an abundance of repetitive research in this area and quantitative methods to provide further persuasive but also has rendered these studies unrecognizable and professional countermeasures and suggestions. to international peers and thereby not conducive to They have emphasized the importance of the Internet, knowledge accumulation in the academic community. especially the role of new media (e.g., Weibo and WeChat) and other modern technology tools in anti- Secondly, scholars should broaden their research corruption efforts. Thus, the research on corruption perspectives, strengthen multidisciplinary and anti-corruption efforts emphasized scientific and collaboration, and improve the research quality. professional approaches. Researchers who analyzed 526 English SSCI journal papers found that corruption and anti-corruption Chinese Studies vs. International Studies research comprises a wide range of perspectives, Compared with research in international journals, including qualitative, quantitative, and experimental Chinese research on corruption and anti-corruption research. Scientific methods are used by 80% of the efforts still have to explore several directions. articles in international journals to study the causal relationships between variables (Xiao & Gong, 2016). First, this research area needs to shift from However, a substantial gap remains in the use of countermeasures to normative and especially empirical scientific methods in Chinese articles. In fact, China’s research. Generally, 152 articles in our database used large number of cases may be valuable for in-depth qualitative research, accounting for 74.15%; 50 papers study by domestic or international scholars in the applied quantitative study, accounting for 24.39%; future. and three articles adopted experimental research,

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Thirdly, compared with the many studies on corruption moral decadence, and work-style corruption (Zhao, in China, research on the effects of anti-corruption 1990; Bao, 1990; Wang, 1995; Huang, 2001; Tang et efforts is inadequate; in particular, empirical analyses al., 2008). are limited. This condition presents not only a future research direction for Chinese scholars but also a Corruption is difficult to measure accurately due field of study for international scholars interested in to its diverse forms. Corruption measurement in Chinese issues. international academia can be roughly divided into two types: subjective perception indicators and In addition, to provide a systematic review, we analyze objective measures. Some international organizations the 205 articles from the following two perspectives: have developed subjective indicators, such as the How does corruption affect public administration? World Development Report, Corruption Perceptions How can public administration mitigate corruption? Index, International Country Risk Guide, and Global (Table 3) Competitiveness Report. By evaluating the corruption level in a country and measuring the subjective CORRUPTION EFFECTS ON PUBLIC feelings of people or businesses concerning corruption, ADMINISTRATION these indexes help scholars examine their countries’ corruption issues from an international perspective, Basic Issues especially in comparative studies. Some scholars using Definition, types, and measures of corruption. the World Bank’s government corruption data for Corruption is often defined as “the abuse of public empirical research have determined that the contents power for personal interest” (the World Bank, 1997). of China’s current government information disclosures In China, scholars also follow this definition: 68 remain shallow and selective and do not yet provide studies (33.17%) clearly define corruption as “abuse in-depth information in a large number of key areas. of power.” Of the total number of articles, 10 propose Therefore, the role of the government’s information that official corruption occurs for personal and disclosures of anti-corruption efforts remains limited organizational gain and to advance the interests of (Ma, 2014). To study how regional corruption small groups (Hu & Guo, 2001; Song & She, 2011; influences corporate contracts, some scholars have Ma, 2014). As China’s economic and social transition used World Bank survey data to find that in regions has provided numerous opportunities for corruption, with high levels of corruption, business owners have official corruption in the country is gradually shifting less trust in court decisions and tend not to resolve from a personal to an organizational setting (Guo, commercial and labor disputes through government 2016) and from being overt to being hidden (Liu, departments (Fang & Nie, 2015). Additionally, on the 2015). basis of international data, some scholars have found that power transfer triggered by changes of officials Under different circumstances, corruption can have increases bribery among enterprises (Li & Ma, 2016). different forms of expression. In China, the boundaries among the public and private sectors are sometimes However, a gap remains between subjective feeling- blurred, so the forms of corruption are diverse (Xiao based measures and the degree of actual corruption. & Gong, 2016). The Chinese government’s definition Increasing numbers of Chinese scholars have of public corruption is considerably broader than devoted efforts to adopting new objective measures, the Western definition, as it includes economic constructing models, designing index systems, and corruption, such as bribery, kickbacks, embezzlement, collecting data for empirical analysis. In measuring fraud, extortion, patronage, nepotism, cronyism and corruption in China, the most popularly used conflicts of interest (Xiang, 1989; Yu, 1991; Ge, 1994; quantitative indicators are the number of revealed, Wang, 1995; Ni, 2011; Gong & Wu, 2012a; Wang, on-file, or investigated corruption cases (Guo, 2006; 2016; Guo, 2017) as well as poor political discipline, Wu & Rui, 2010; Ni, 2011; Gong & Wu, 2012a;

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Liu, 2013; Guo & Cheng, 2013; Fan, 2013; Zhu & Empirical research has found that the expansion Gong, 2015). These public data released by the of the government scale increases the incidence of Supreme People’s Court and Procuratorate of China corruption in a region; in addition, the effect of the constitute a professional and authoritative source of size of core government departments is significant, information. In addition, researchers can construct a and a 1% increase in the size of party and government further diverse framework of corruption measures that departments leads to a 0.68%–1% increase in the include three dimensions, namely, corruption degree, number of corruption cases (Zhou & Tao, 2009). anti-corruption intensity, and corruption risk, to avoid misunderstanding and confusion about corruption and The weakness of civil society. The civil society in anti-corruption efforts (Guo, 2017). China is immature and imperfect (Pu, 2009), and the information shared between the government and the Reasons for corruption. On the basis of the 205 public is asymmetric (Ni & Sun, 2015). The public Chinese articles, the causes of corruption can be supervision of officials has various restrictions, and divided into the following categories. the channels for it are not smooth, so having a real effect is difficult (Ge, 1994; Zhang & Miao, 1999; Human greed. When facing the temptations caused Wang, 2016). by China’s economic and social development (Guo, 2011; Liu, 2013) and considering the psychological Social and cultural traditions. In traditional China, imbalance caused by low income and the widening the rule of the people is more important than the rule distribution gap (Xin, 1997; Huang, 2001), some of law (Yu, 1991). The culture of official supremacy officials are prone to power alienation (Ni, 1997; Wang, (Zhao & Yu, 1990) and guanxi (relation) are also 2001). Some scholars have found a neighborhood important factors in the corruption of officials (Chang effect between neighboring provinces in China (Wei, & Tang, 2007), resulting in a supervision dilemma 2010): corruption is contagious, and high-level official for China’s anti-corruption efforts: supervision from corruption has significant effects (Chen, 2013). above is too far away, subordinate supervision is too soft, public supervision is too weak, and media Economic transition. Considering China’s rapid supervision is too chaotic (He, 2015). economic development and transformation, officials sometimes abuse their rights in allocating scarce Areas and groups prone to corruption. As resources (Pu, 2009; Xie & Kang, 2010). corruption refers to “the abuse of public power for personal interest,” areas with excessive public power, Institutional omissions. During the current transition extremely high concentration of scarce resources, and period, Chinese government officials sometimes great discretion among officials are prone to public are the policymakers, performers, arbitrators, and corruption (Hu & Guo, 2001). These areas include participants (Hu & Guo, 2001). Information is not important state organs, such as finance (Cheng, 2004; open but rather opaque (He, 2001), which allows local Guo, 2009; Ni, 2011), judiciary (Song & She, 2011), government officials wide discretion (Cheng, 2004; customs (Jiang, 2008), and public security (Ding, Zhang, 2011) and leaves room for corruption among 1994), as well as areas involving public investment and them. Meanwhile, considering the lack of effective financial expenditures, such as infrastructure (Guo, mechanisms for the control and supervision of power 2017), engineering construction (Xin, 1997), business (Wang, 1995; Liu & Zhu, 2010), the work division supervision, tax collection (Ni, 2011), land leasing and between anti-corruption government departments land demolition (Hou & Han, 2006), and government is unclear, and the specialization degree of anti- procurement (Wan & Wu, 2012). Monopoly industries corruption officials is not sufficient (Guo, 2010). are also affected, such as electrical services (He, The excessive flexibility of the system and rules has 2001), healthcare (Liu & Zhu, 2010), transportation, negative effects on anti-corruption efforts (Ge, 1994). and education (Wang & Jiang, 2009).

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With regard to the characteristics of a high incidence human capital accumulation, and material capital of corruption, some scholars using empirical research accumulation (Chen et al. 2008). have found that principal officials’ corruption is generally more serious than deputy officials’ corruption. Numerous scholars also believe that the relationship Corruption among provincial and ministerial level between corruption and economic development is officials is the most intense and often involves the affected by institutional differences and the social largest amounts of money, street-level officials have environment. Historical stages can be used to show the highest frequency of corruption transactions (Liu, the differentiation results across regions. Empirical 2013), and middle-level officials are increasingly at studies demonstrate that corruption and China’s high risk for corruption (Gong & Wu, 2012a). economic growth generally can be portrayed as having an inverted U-shaped relationship, but the Corruption, Economic Development, Social specific effect of corruption on growth shows regional Stability, and Public Perception differences. Corruption can reduce the difficulties Corruption and economic development. The involved in public transactions and improve economic question of whether corruption is a lubricant for efficiency in areas with low marketability and economic development or a stumbling block has imperfect institutions and thus may have a positive been controversial internationally. Scholars also have effect on economic growth. By contrast, in well- different views in Asia due to the “Asian paradox,” developed areas, the role of corruption in economic which refers to the coexistence of rapid economic development is negative (Wu & Rui, 2010). growth and a high level of corruption in numerous Asian countries (Wedeman, 2012). Corruption and social stability. In China, scholars generally believe that public corruption greatly However, most scholars in China believe that the effect endangers social stability because it can lead to of corruption on economic development is negative. inequality in income distribution (Wei, 2010), expand As corruption can disrupt the relationship between the gap between rich and poor (Wei, 2001; Wu & Zhu, resource allocation and income distribution, forcing 2012), and result in inefficiency and social injustice enterprises to devote numerous economic resources (Xin, 1997; Xiao & Gong, 2016). Corruption also to political activities (Xiang, 1989), corruption reduces the enthusiasm of civil servants (Xie et al. undermines the principle of fair competition in 2008) such that people who are truly capable do not a market economy (Zhao & Yu, 1990); prevents become civil servants (Xiang, 1989). Corruption also the formation of a competitive market (Ni, 1997); leads to abuse of power (Ni, 1997), undermines the reduces the efficiency of resource allocation (Xin, democratic system and the rule of law (Pu, 2009; Xie 1997); restricts foreign direct investment, resulting & Kang, 2011), causes distortions in implementing in the loss of public resources (Xin, 1997; He, 2001; government policy objectives (Wang, 1995), Guo, 2011); and damages the national interest (Yu, undermines the government’s political authority 1991). Corruption is also not conducive to increasing (Bao, 1990; Liu, 2005; Jiang, 2008), weakens the employment (He, 2001), limits technological progress government’s capacity, and harms the national and (Wang, 2006), and hinders long-term economic and public interest (Ge, 1994). Official corruption also social development (Liu & Zhu, 2010; Wan & Wu, harms the social atmosphere (Hou, 2006), thus 2012), thereby weakening China in the fiercely hindering the social development process (Wang, competitive international economic community (He, 2001). If corruption increases to an extreme extent, 2001). Some scholars have argued that corruption then it can cause social unrest (Ma, 2014), which is has been a significant hindrance to China’s economic the greatest threat to the ruling party, national security, growth and that a 1% increase in corruption results and social stability (Ding, 1994; Rong, 1997; Huang, in a 0.4%–0.6% decline in economic growth 2001; Hu & Guo, 2001; Ni, 2011; Jiang, 2008; Wang because corruption suppresses technological growth, & Jiang, 2009; Jiang, 2010).

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Corruption and public perception. In recent years, perception of corruption? Some scholars distributed as the Chinese people have paid close attention to a questionnaire survey to the public in a Chinese public corruption, scholars have begun to focus on province and found that the public perception depends studying people’s tolerance for corruption and other on individuals’ own experience with corruption, subjective feelings. the information provided by the media, and the economic and social development (Ni & Sun, 2015). Those who argue that the public is displeased by The level of corruption perceived by the public is corruption have noted that corruption increases the also highly influenced by the government’s efforts benefits accrued by transitional countries’ privileged to combat corrupt activities, and the relationship interest groups (Chen & Tong, 1998) at the expense between performance efforts and outcomes is not of the interests of other members of the society (Li, always positive. Increased anti-corruption efforts 2003; Wang & Tian, 2003). Thus, corruption increases may not reduce the level of corruption perceived by the economic burden of other people (Xiao & Gong, the public but rather may lead to an increase in the 2016), causes misunderstanding and conflict between public awareness of corruption (Sun & Yang, 2016). government officials and the public (He, 2001; Liu This case may explain the paradox whereby China’s & Zhu, 2010), leads to dissatisfaction with or doubt anti-corruption intensity has increased over the years, regarding government authority and policy (Ni, 1997; but the Chinese people still believe that “corruption is Ge, 1994), and ultimately undermines the support growing.” of and trust in the ruling party and government (Yu, 1991; Wang, 2001; Wang & Jiang, 2009; Kim, 2016; Therefore, the government must strengthen its Guo, 2017). information disclosure and improve the interactions between officials and the public so that the people can Some scholars find that corruption is a key variable understand and differentiate the degrees of corruption, that affects the attitude of the Chinese public toward anti-corruption intensity, and corruption risk (Guo, governments (Wei, 2001; Zhang & Wu, 2014). A 2017). significant negative correlation exists between the provincial corruption rate and the political trust of HOW CAN GOOD PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION Chinese citizens, but corruption has no significant MITIGATE CORRUPTION? influence on the political trust of the central government (Wu & Liu, 2017). That is, the public has a stronger Anti-corruption Strategies corruption perception of local governments, which Unlike the anti-corruption model in Western countries, are closely related to their own interests, than of the Chinese anti-corruption governance is conducted central government (Li & Meng, 2017; Zhang, 2017). under the leadership of the Communist Party of China. In addition, corruption is likely to occur in areas with In addition to legal constraints, the ruling party has scarce resources and profitable interests. As a result, numerous party discipline requirements for Chinese corruption induces local governments to reduce their officials, which is the fundamental difference between investment in areas that are less profitable even if China’s anti-corruption efforts and those of other they are closely related to the public welfare, such as countries (Guo, 2017). healthcare, education, and social security. Therefore, China needs to reduce corrupt behavior, especially Scholars have offered numerous useful suggestions street-level bureaucratic corruption, which is highly concerning China’s current anti-corruption strategies. visible to the public; in this way, the public subjective perception of corruption can be reduced (Zhu & Gong, Firstly, China could promote economic and 2015). political reforms (He, 2001). Some scholars who used provincial-level panel data found that China What are the influence factors of the public could accelerate its economic development to curb

Tang, Ding, & Xu • 89 Corruption and Anti-Corruption Research in China corruption on the basis of the inverted U-shaped and responsibilities (Chen, 1997); and combining curve relationship (Wan & Wu, 2012). To strengthen administrative and social supervisions into one system the government’s capacity on anti-corruption (Xiang, (Xiang, 1989; Chen, 1993; Wang, 1993; Ni, 1997; He, 1989), national leaders should have a clear political 2003; Xie & Kang, 2010; Wang, 2016). The Chinese commitment to combatting corruption (Hu & Guo, clean-government culture should be used to exert 2001). In addition, along with accelerating the public pressure on corrupt officials to form a strong reform of the political system (Bao, 1990; He, 2001), deterrent (Hu & Guo, 2001) and increase the cost of improving the selection system of civil servants (Wu & civil servants’ corruption (Jiang, 2008). Lin, 2012) is crucial. In addition, China should focus on improving the government’s information disclosure Fourthly, the Chinese government could use (Ma, 2014), increasing the transparency of decision international anti-corruption tools to fight corruption. making in the government (Hu, 1989; Shen, 2000; This includes using big data (Liu, 2015) and information Zheng, 2003), strengthening the accountability system technology to improve the efficiency of anti-corruption (Gong, 2010), reforming the supervisory system for efforts (Liu & Xu, 2008), paying further attention to public officials (Du, 2002), and preventing excessive Internet-based anti-corruption efforts (Liu & Zhu, interference of administrative power in economic 2010; Song & She, 2011; Deng & Liu, 2013; Xie, activities (Rong, 1997). Meanwhile, improving the 2014), and using international resources to strengthen civil servant selection and the supervision mechanism international cooperation against corruption (Hu & is a more effective anti-corruption method than Guo, 2001). In studying Chinese officials’ corruption merely providing a high salary (Long & Tian, 2008). in 2003–2013, some scholars have found through These actions would increase the barriers to the abuse empirical studies that media exposure plays a role in of power by public officials (Ge, 1994; Guo, 2017; monitoring government officials, that is, the higher Wang, 1995). the media exposure of a province, the better the local government’s anti-corruption efforts (Nie & Wang, Secondly, China could improve the existing legislation 2014). In addition, some scholars note that anti- to combine prevention and punishment. In particular, corruption through new media platforms provides a we should regard the enactment of the Supervision convenient public opinion expression channel and can Law of the People’s Republic of China as an important effectively strengthen the impact of public supervision opportunity to strengthen national legislation against on civil servants. However, from the privacy corruption and highlight the importance of top-level protection perspective, this can also cause negative government design (Liu, 2013). The government consequences. Thus, regulating anti-corruption via should strengthen its work on legislation (Xie, 1990; the Internet and balancing the people’s right to know Tang, 2000), focus on corruption prevention (Hou and the privacy of public officials are also necessary & Han, 2006; Jiang, 2008; Xue, 2010), expand the (Zhang & Ren, 2013). independence and autonomy of discipline supervision departments (Xiang, 1989), and improve the Anti-corruption Mechanism Changes: professional skills of anti-corruption teams (Hu & Campaign Against Corruption, Guo, 2001). The anti-corruption agency should not be Institutionalized Anti-corruption, Anti- tolerant of public officials’ corruption in legislative, corruption through New Media Platforms administrative, and judicial activities (Bao, 1990). By studying 205 Chinese articles, we find that China’s anti-corruption practices have shown three remarkable Thirdly, the government could work to enhance trends: campaign against corruption (1950s–1980s), public participation. This involves strengthening the institutionalized anti-corruption (1990s) and new role of nongovernmental organizations in the fight media anti-corruption (since the 2000s). against corruption (Li, 2008); avoiding uncertainty and duplicative or overlapping government duties China’s past anti-corruption practices include

90 • Chinese Public Administration Review Volume 9 Issue 2, December 2018 ideological education, social movements, and can subject officials to strict social supervision, institutional constraints (Ni, 2011). Before the 1990s, enhance the government’s interaction with the public, social movements represented the main anti-corruption improve the government’s credibility, conserve public method, that is, corruption was suppressed through resources, strengthen intergovernmental cooperation, social movements. This method is rapid but costly and achieve policy objectives to transform the former and can easily lead to social unrest. During a social channel of institutional anti-corruption led by the movement, the corrupt behavior of officials is reduced, government into the current national anti-corruption but after the campaign, corruption can reappear in strategy that involves public participation. an even broader form. This method of combatting corruption is passive and does not improve the legal The Effectiveness of Recent Anti-Corruption system fundamentally, but it can undermine the rule of Practice law and amplify system loopholes (Ge, 1994). What are the effects of recent anti-corruption practice in China? What factors have affected these anti- In the 1990s, China’s anti-corruption strategy shifted corruption efforts? These questions are also important from social movements to institutional combatting of in the works of Chinese scholars. corruption, that is, rule-oriented anti-corruption work (Gong & Wu, 2012a). Further attention focused on the In general, China’s anti-corruption efforts have supervision of power, improvement of the decision- significantly improved the level of citizens’ making system, and effectiveness of the independence participation (He, 2003), improved the efficiency of the of the procuratorate system and judicial process (Ge, government’s work, and enhanced the people’s trust in 1994; Wang & Jiang, 2009). and satisfaction with the government. A poll conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics from 2003 to On the basis of keywords in the yearly report of the 2010 shows that the Chinese public’s satisfaction with Supreme People’s Court and Procuratorate of China, the effectiveness of anti-corruption efforts increased some empirical studies found a negative relationship from 51.9% to 70.6% (Zhao, 2014). In addition, by between social movements and the effectiveness using data from the China Statistical Yearbook, some of anti-corruption efforts and a strong correlation scholars have found that anti-corruption practices have between institutional constraints and the effectiveness significant and positive effects on the local per-capita of anti-corruption efforts (Ni, 2011). income. The government’s efforts can significantly reduce the negative effects of corruption (Fan, 2013), Since the beginning of the 21st century, with the provide an improved environment for local economic progress of science and technology and the development and social development, and improve the quality of of new media, especially after the outbreak of SARS local governance (Wu & Zhu, 2012). in 2003, the Chinese government launched the official accountability system, and China’s anti-corruption With regard to the various factors that affect anti- mechanism has shifted to new media anti-corruption corruption performance, experts and scholars efforts. From the public’s perspective, social media have conducted numerous studies from their own networks are open, transparent, convenient, timely, perspectives. Wu (2014) suggested that good wages and widespread, so they can further protect the for civil servants can help curb corruption and that people’s rights regarding participation and expression China’s increasingly sophisticated institutional in a new way (Liu & Zhu, 2010). Numerous officials’ environment and rising human capital levels also have corruption cases are first publicized through new certain effects on suppressing corruption. Scholars media, which triggers pressure from public opinion and have also studied Chinese officials’ corruption cases thus promotes government action against corruption from 2003 to 2013 and determined that in politically (Deng & Liu, 2013; Ma, 2014; Zhang, 2013). From sensitive periods (e.g., around the time of national and the government’s point of view, the use of new media local people’s congresses), China’s anti-corruption

Tang, Ding, & Xu • 91 Corruption and Anti-Corruption Research in China efforts have been weakened because the government Compared with the existing literature review on mainly focuses on maintaining social stability. In China’s corruption and anti-corruption studies, our addition, scholars have found that the influence of the paper mainly attempts to achieve the following goals. political cycle on the effects of anti-corruption efforts is significant in provinces with officials that have been The first goal is to achieve a breakthrough in the transferred directly from the central government or analysis framework. Existing literature reviews often have high media exposure (Nie & Wang, 2014). offer a brief description of papers, such as research funding sources, authors’ affiliations and academic CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION status, data collection methods, and statistical methods (Ni & Chen, 2011). Alternatively, they discuss Corruption and anti-corruption efforts are important characteristics, definitions, measurements, causes of topics in academic research and in the practice of corruption, and anti-corruption strategies (Zhu, 2017). public administration. On the basis of a systematic This paper focuses on the in-depth exploration of review of 205 articles from Chinese top journals corruption and anti-corruption studies on the basis of (1989–2017), this study shows the two-way interaction the analytical framework we have constructed. between corruption, anti-corruption efforts, and public administration in China, thereby providing alternative Therefore, this article asks “how does corruption directions for Chinese and international scholars’ affect public administration?” and “how can a good future research in China’s corruption and anti- public administration mitigate corruption?” We not corruption. This study reveals the following findings. only discuss the evolution of Chinese corruption and anti-corruption research methods, the authors’ 1. The number of research papers on corruption and characteristics, the research topics in the literature, anti-corruption efforts is closely related to domestic and the basic questions, but also summarize the and international events on anti-corruption. definition, type, measurement, reasons for corruption, and areas and groups prone to corruption. By 2. Compared with the literature in English, that in studying the relations between corruption and Chinese still needs improvement in terms of empirical economic development, corruption and social research. stability, corruption and public perception, the authors examine China’s anti-corruption strategy changes, 3. Human greed, economic transition, institutional mechanisms, and effects, as well as describe the omissions, the weakness of the civil society, social and interactive process between the academic research cultural traditions are the main reasons for corruption and social reality, the differences and gaps between in developing countries such as China. Chinese and international research.

4. The relationship between corruption and economic The second goal is to extend the research path. Most development differs on the basis of the institutional literature reviews by Chinese domestic scholars on situation and social environment. corruption and anti-corruption studies were published before 2012 (Li & Li, 2004; Ni & Chen, 2011; Li 5. The anti-corruption mechanism in China changed et al. 2011), the updated research is still lacking. from the campaign against corruption (1950s–1980s) Furthermore, few articles have been reviewed to institutionalized anti-corruption (1990s) and finally from a multidisciplinary perspective, including to anti-corruption through new media platforms (since management, economics, politics, sociology, law, and the 2000s). communication. To compensate for these defects, this article captures the challenges of academic research 6. Studies, empirically evaluating anti-corruption and government practice faced by the changes in effects, are still lacking in China. forms of corruption (such as the rise of collective

92 • Chinese Public Administration Review Volume 9 Issue 2, December 2018 corruption). This study notes that we need to strengthen three aspects. the research on corruption effects on socioeconomic aspects and investigate the corruption phenomenon at From the perspective of how corruption affects the grassroots level. public administration, we should strengthen the study on the corruption mechanism in China. As The third goal is to capture new research questions. the emergence of corruption is the challenge to the Due to the close correlation between the theory and existing system, we should analyze the economic practice of corruption and anti-corruption, the vitality obstacles and institutional defects that cause delays of research on this problem is often affected by the in economic and social development. In this process, dual effects of national policy change and grassroots determining how to handle the relationship among practice against corruption. Compared with the individuals, organizations, central governments and existing literature, this article aims to identify the new local governments correctly is worthy of further problems and experiences in China, for example, the research. The empirical study of this problem can help changes to the anti-corruption strategy and mechanism, deepen our understanding of the coexistence of high the influence of new institutions on anti-corruption economic growth and corruption in China. practice, and the motivation and influencing factors of the national anti-corruption mechanism under the From the perspective of how improved public development of new media. administration reduces corruption, we should pay further attention to the changes in China’s anti- The limitations of this study are as follows. Our corruption theory and practice brought about by power database contains only 205 papers from 14 important structure adjustment. The Chinese government’s journals published from 1989 to 2017 in China, definition of corruption, which not only refers to “the the explanatory power of this article is still limited abuse of public power for personal interests” but also considering the size of the sample. In the future, we comes from the law and Communist Party of China’s can add other high-ranking journals and even reports discipline, is considerably broader than the Western and books to provide a further comprehensive path of definition. To reduce the crime by taking advantage corruption and anti-corruption research in China. of public duty (zhiwu fanzui), China established the National Supervisory Commission in 2018, which We agree with the suggestions of some scholars that is also an important organization installed by the future research can break through in the following National People’s Congress. This action demonstrates aspects. Firstly, we should provide importance to the the Chinese government’s determination to fight use of new policy tools, draw on the experience of corruption and shows the political commitment other countries, and focus on international cooperation of national leaders. The change in the new power in anti-corruption research. Integrity management in structure, its influence on the anti-corruption theory anti-corruption should be accorded great attention and practice, its effect on intergovernmental relations, (Gong & Wu, 2012b). Secondly, we should strengthen and determining how to perform qualitative and corruption measurement and the understanding of the quantitative research deserve our attention in future coexistence of high economic growth and corruption research. in China. Thirdly, through great disclosure of corruption cases, we should bridge the gap between In addition, unlike the anti-corruption model in macro-institutional conditions and micro-analysis Western countries, China’s anti-corruption governance (Zhu, 2017). is conducted under the leadership of the Communist Party of China. This condition is the fundamental Meanwhile, considering the literature review, we difference between China’s anti-corruption efforts believe that future studies on corruption and anti- and those of other countries. Political will is the corruption can also be strengthened in the following fundamental factor in the Chinese government’s anti-

Tang, Ding, & Xu • 93 Corruption and Anti-Corruption Research in China corruption efforts. Therefore, in the future, we can Evidence and Future Directions. Public focus on the relationship between political factors Administration Review, 77(1): 32–44. and anti-corruption efforts, especially strengthen the Deng, X. J., & Liu, J. (2013). Research on the empirical research on the political will (of leaders Becoming Model of Public Opinion in Anti- at different government levels) and anti-corruption Corruption Microblogging: Based on Social effect. Thus, we can perform in-depth research on Computing Analysis on the Subjective Relationship corruption and anti-corruption in the Chinese context. of the Biaoge Event on Sina Weibo, Journalism & Communication, (12), 82–94 REFERENCES Ding, X. L. (1994). Corruption is the Lubricant or the Corrosive of Reform? Comparative Economic & Bao, S. X. (1990). Legal Thinking on the Elimination Social Systems, (4), 64–65. of Corruption and Severe Punishment of Duty Du, G. J. (2002). Perfecting the Mechanism of Power Crimes. Law Review, (1), 18–28. Operation and Effectively Preventing Power Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Abuse. China Reform, (5), 28–30. Communist Party of China (2017). Wunianlai chufen Fan, Z. Y. (2013). Fiscal Transfer, Infrastructure xiangkeji jiyixia dangyuan ganbu 134.3 wanren Investment and Corruption. Comparative Economic [China has punished 1.343 million street-level & Social Systems, (2), 179–192. Party cadres since the last five years] (in Chinese). Fang, M. Y., & Nie, H. H. (2015). The Impact of http://fanfu.people.com.cn/n1/2017/1008/c64371- Corruption on Contract Enforcement of Firms: 29574649.html Evidence from Chinese Firms. Comparative Chang, G. M. & Tang, X. Q. (2007). Improve the Ruling Economic & Social Systems, (4), 119–129. Party ‘s Mechanism of Combating Corruption. Ge, Y. F. (1994). Sociological Thinking on Corruption. CASS Journal of Political Science, (1), 45–52. Management World, (3), 206–210. Chen, G. (2013). The Negative Role Model of Gong, T. (2010). Auditing Accountability and Corrupt High Government Officials in the Spread Anticorruption in China: Prospects and Problems. of Corruption: Evidence from China. Comparative Journal of Public Administration, 3(2):69–84. Economic & Social Systems, (2), 155–164. Gong, T., & Wu, M. L. (2012a). A Research Report Chen, G., Li, S., & Yin, X. G. (2008). Corruption and on China’s Corruption Cases during 2000–2009: China’s Economic Growth: From the Perspective Empirical Analysis of Some 2800 Corruption of Positivism. Comparative Economic & Social Cases. Sociological Studies, (4), 204–220. Systems, (3), 59–68. Gong, T., Wu, A.M. (2012b). Does increased civil Chen, G. Q. (1993), Research of Corruption service pay deter corruption? Evidence from China. Countermeasure in the Process of Economic Review of Public Personnel Administration, 32(2): Development of Less Developed Countries. 192–204. Sociological Studies, (6), 1-5. Guo, J. M. (2009). The Construction of Public Budget Chen, J. J., & Tong, F. L. (1998). Eliminate the Hotbed Constraint Mechanism and the Improvement of of Corruption: Rent-seeking. Chinese Public China’s Anti-Corruption Model. CASS Journal of Administration, (4), 63. Political Science, (4), 73–81. Cheng, W. H. (2004). Institutional Roots of China’s Guo, J. M. (2011). From Budget Opening to Corrupt Opportunities Emerging in the Reform Era. Government Clearing-up: the International Vision China Public Administration Review, 2, 87–97. of Anti-corruption System Construction. CASS Chen, Y. S. (1997). Anti-Corruption and Public Journal of Political Science, (2), 57–68. Participation. CASS Journal of Political Science, Guo, J. M. & Cao, S. Y. (2011). Explore the Path from (4), 14–20. Fiscal Transparency to the Government’s Clearing- Cucciniello M., Porumbescu G. A., & Grimelikhuijsen up. CASS Journal of Political Science, (2), 124– S. (2017). 25 Years of Transparency Research: 125.

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Na Tang, College of Public Administration, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China.

Zi Ding, School of Management, People’s Public Security University of China.

Yanni Xu, School of Management, Beijing Sport University, China.

98 • Chinese Public Administration Review Chinese Public Administration CPAR Review Volume 9 Issue 2, December 2018

When Western Administrative Theories Meet China’s Government Reforms: Do they fit?

Leizhen Zang^, Chenguang Sun* ^ University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China; Peking University, China; * City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

INTRODUCTION

henever the issue of convergence and or reconstructed administrative reforms in light of the divergence of different social science initiatives of their academic advisors, most of whom Wdisciplines is brought up for discussion, have been grounded in a liberalized weltanschauung. scholars routinely highlight factors relating to the How to evaluate the effectiveness of reforms, in turn, context of culture, institutions, history, or society. has revitalized the classic debate among researchers A critical perplexity emerges when the discussion (Andrews, 2013). is in the context of governmental reform, namely, whether the one-size-fits-all doctrines derived from When we turn our research interests to China, which one nation’s development trajectory are applicable has accepted the idea of “democratic meritocracy” as to different countries. This is particularly important well as other Weberian principles into its administrative given that developing countries have made countless practices (Rothstein, 2015). Certainly, the impact of such reforms aiming at facilitating the political transition, reforms, in terms of their development path and potential in accordance with different academic theories (Meier, to improve good governance, has been examined by a Andersen, Jr, Favero, & Winter, 2015; Cheung, 1997). kaleidoscope of perspectives (Burns, 2000; Christensen, Lisheng, & Painter, 2008; Haque & Turner, 2013; Ngok In the field of public administration, developing & Zhu, 2007; Su, Walker, & Xue, 2013). However, since countries in practice still quasi-universally adopt 1980, waves of theoretical changes have occurred in the the current theories and principles from developed academic field of international public administration, countries. Over the last 30 years, an increasing amount notably, with the successive proposals for reinventing the of less-developed countries, along with some of their government theory, the entrepreneur government theory, developed counterparts (Dent, 2005), have implemented the new public-service theory, the joint-up government

Address correspondence to the author at [email protected]. View this article online at cpar.net Zang & Sun • 99 When Western Administrative Theories Meet China’s Government Reforms: Do they fit? theory, etc. Accordingly, China also saw seven waves THE DEVELOPMENT OF WESTERN of government institutional reforms from 1982 to 2013, PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION THEORIES AND each of which followed a government turnover. While CHINA’S GOVERNMENT REFORMS many previous studies have documented these reform efforts through case studies and cross-sectional data The high performance of government is deemed analyses, there have been few attempts to generally necessary to realize and improve a ruling party’s assess changes on institutional and agency staff that political visibility and gain the support of citizens. have occurred during the past 35 years. In order to Since World War II, most Western developed countries bridge the research gap, it is necessary to analyze these have undergone a major process of administrative changes between concentration and decentralization restructuring. The unexpectedly hapless response as well as the discrepancies between political ideology to the 1970s oil crisis, along with scores of other and practical outcomes. Nevertheless, researchers either public emergencies stoked by modern technologies, implicitly defend the effectiveness of westernized exposed entrenched deficiencies in many countries’ experience by arguing that the lack of cultural factors administrative structures. These lessons prodded and advanced economy market involvement in the upper them to cut public expenditures, downsize the public political echelons hinders the positive “imitation of the sector and streamline public service in order to boost West” (Christensen, Dong, Painter, & Walker, 2012) administrative efficiency and maintain the vitality of or chronically diagnose the cause of the formation for institutional forces. Theories on public administration, complicated relationships between Western theories and albeit in various forms, had a profound impact on China’s actual trajectory which is somewhat unlikely the worldwide movements to reform government to breed independently indigenous doctrines (Zhang, institutions. These renowned theoretical schools 2017). include the New Public Management, Janet Denhardt and Robert Denhardt’s New Public Service, and the In order to highlight the strengths and theoretical ongoing public administration doctrine of David H. limitations of our research whilst distinguishing it Rosenbloom and Elinor Ostrom. from other studies, we aim to address the following questions in this paper: (1) what is the relationship In the 1980s, administrative reforms spread between China’s public administration and the theory of throughout Western developed countries and newly international public administration? (2) Have China’s industrializing countries, notably in the Former Soviet administrative reforms, notably the administrative Union and Eastern European bloc, when the latter was streamlining and the local delegation, reached their endeavoring to make the critical transition to a market intended targets? (3) What can other developing economy. This worldwide wave of administrative countries learn from China’s administrative reforms? restructuring has thereafter remained in the limelight of both academic circles and the wider public discussion. The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section two reviews the development of foreign academic The 1980s New Public Management (NPM) reform, theories along with the topics of China’s administrative from which the important concepts of public reforms. In addition, section three introduces the accountability and organizations’ best practice were changes in the number of ministries and the number derived, was once believed to be “one clear direction” of civil servants hired for the State Council. Moreover, to make a difference in the Anglophone territory and section four points out what kinds of lessons we can hopeful in those post-communist fronts. However, as learn from China’s governmental reforms. Last but not noted by political scientists, those imperatives (norms least, section five concludes the paper, providing some of “Englishness”, the economic powerhouse, positive potential policy implications for other developing partisanship obligation and governmental scale) for countries. the reform were highly difficult to accomplish in some developing countries. To be specific, researchers

100 • Chinese Public Administration Review Volume 9 Issue 2, December 2018 found that the efforts towards sustainable development It cannot be denied that the Universalist modes of in late-adopter countries were inevitably hindered by thinking and ignorance of regional particularities a series of difficulties including governmental fiscal by worldwide organizations or western scholars crisis, chronic economic slowdown, poor efficiency have been given a remarkable degree of country in the public sector, growing inflation, imperious contextualization during recent decades as a response bureaucracy, nepotism, lack of accountability, and to criticism from developing countries. However, corruption (Christensen & Lægreid, 2002; Minogue the essence of “one-size-fits-all” philosophy has not & Polidano, 1998). changed much today. This can be seen in proposals for further deepening reform in China. The keynote It is from here that an obsession with almost every in the proposals still was the privatization of State- country comes: How does the restructuring of owned Enterprises (SOE), tallying with reigning neo- government adapt to the ever-changing socio-political liberalism tenets which failed to function in the face of context at home and abroad? America’s subprime meltdown and the European debt crisis. Such reforms are initially expected to rationalize extant deficient institutions, create greater efficiency Actually, scholars hold different views on developing and improve the quality of public services. However, countries’ NPM reform practices. Their academic prescriptions from developed countries are commonly discussions can be divided into three stages deemed too generalized or even too opaque to address corresponding to different approaches. In the first stage, the predicament of inefficient governance in developing scholars focused on how developing countries would countries. Nevertheless, despite the skepticism adopt NPM reforms from the perspective of history regarding their practical effects, these NPM-branded and culture. In the second stage, around the turn of the strategies spread around the world, aiming to answer century, with the acceleration of globalization and the pressing demands for decentralization, the public- rising academic trend of “bringing the institutions back private partnership, privatization, and marketization. in” (Weiss, 2003), they tended to adopt the perspectives Such a paradigmatic doctrine also played a role in of institutionalism and globalism/cosmopolitanism China’s 1994 tax-sharing and public expenditure and examined whether these countries should accept reforms, focusing on the issue of government NPM reform practices. During the third phase, with procurement criteria (Osborne & Gaebler, 1992; the development of computer technology and other Pollitt, Birchall, & Putnam, 1998). new techniques in the new century, contemporary trends like technological determinism and social

Table 1. Different Perspectives in Different Periods

Accept NPM reform in Prudently accept or hesitate to accept developing countries NPM reform in developing countries Historical Perspective Hood (1991) Hood (1991) 1st Period Culture Perspective Hood and Peters (2004); Pillay Gendron, Cooper, and Townley (2001) (2008); Samaratunge, Alam, and Teicher (2008) Institutional Perspective Richard and George (2004) Pollitt (2001) 2nd Period Globalization Movement Kim, Ashley, and Lambright Welch and Wong (1998) (2014) Technological Determinism Askim, Christensen, Fimreite, and Dunleavy, Margetts, Bastow, and Tinkler 3rd Period Lægreid (2009) (2006) Social Constructivism Kaboolian (1998) Elias (2006)

Zang & Sun • 101 When Western Administrative Theories Meet China’s Government Reforms: Do they fit? constructivism became the focus of analysis on how theory, Osborne’s theory of Enterprise Government, the conventional centerpiece of NPM principles would Denhardt’s New Public Service theory, and work in tandem with the fast-changing situation in Rosenbloom’s multiple public administration theory, developing countries (Table 1). which have become very popular in the academic circles, allowing Chinese researchers to refresh and In recent years, following a new round of institutional redefine knowledge, along with research norms. reforms in Western countries, developing countries Moreover, a number of monographs and research have also actively promoted administrative series have also blossomed, elaborating on the middle- restructuring with the hope of modernizing their range and micro-level comparison between China and institutional setting and increasing the efficiency of other countries’ governmental restructuring initiatives public services. China is no exception. China has (Christensen et al., 2008). In addition, lessons arising enjoyed benefits from Western academic theories in its from some unsatisfactory reforms elsewhere have also political institutional reforms and has tried to improve been analyzed in China. These academic works have its institutional setup through continuous institutional introduced and further contrasted the previous theories reforms. and practices in Western countries, thus providing examples as well as theoretical implications on the Since the start of the reform and opening up in the late theme of commensurability to help stimulate debates 1970s, China has conducted seven relatively large- against doctrinaire practices. As a result, academic scale administrative structural reform. These reforms research in this area fuels reflection on meta-theory, took place in 1982, 1988, 1993, 2003, 2008 and 2013; methodology, professionalism and the importance of a it is clear to see that every generation of the CPC global outlook. Such highlighting of worldwide trends leadership had its own reform goal. in governmental reforms and institutional restructuring is expected to contribute to the international academic Taking into account both domestic contexts and community. international experience, measures in Chinese reforms look quite similar to reforms in foreign countries, Yet many Sinologists have identified a somewhat especially Anglo-Saxon countries, suggesting that perplexing paradox. On the one hand, in the words imitation may be taking place (Caulfield, 2006; Foster, of official propaganda, China has long believed in its 2005). In the policy-making process, an academic uniqueness and official self-confidence in determining survey argues that Chinese bureaucratic cultures and its developmental trajectory and timetable. Given the practices have transformed various Western approaches expression of the country’s five-year plans, the party’s (Chan & Chow, 2007). For further discussions of the propaganda system constantly emphasizes citizens and correlation between China’s reforms and international scholars’ confidence in socialist ideology. In academic theories, the comparative perspective of these reforms circles, some scholars also highlight the concept and academic theories could be adopted. As showed of “reform practices with Chinese characteristics” in Table 2, each stage of China’s reforms was not only (Aufrecht & Bun, 1995; Huang, 2008; Warner, 2008), based on domestic conditions but also had a strong aiming to theoretically rationalize the old claim of the correlation with international experience. superiority of the socialist system and to internalize the perception that China’s featured reforms did produce Macroscopic comparative studies emerged within distinctive policy outcomes. Chinese academia owing to the knowledge demand of Western theories, for example, there are quantities of On the other hand, both Chinese officials and think- translations of renowned Western scholars since the tank never ceased to resort to international theories Communist Party took power in 1949. These works and practices for designing and implementing contain James Buchanan’s “government failure” domestic institutional reforms. For example, a Public Choice theory, Edward Quade’s Policy Analysis growing consensus is that China is a theory consumer,

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Table 2. Major Institutional Reforms in China and the International Inspiration (Theories and Practices)

International Theories and/ Party Congress and or Practices (especially Plenary Session of Topics of Institutional Reform Reform Practice in Western Countries) for CPC Guidance The 12th CPC Central • Improve government efficiency • New Public Management On May 8th, 1982, the 22nd Committee meeting • Separate the role of the Party Theory session of the 5th Standing (Sept 1-11, 1982) and and the state, and make them • Reforms Practice by Committee of the National its 7th Plenum (Oct 20, operate independently and Margaret Thatcher and People’s Congress (NPC) 1987) without mutual interference Ronald Reagan passed the resolution on Reform of Institutions under the State Council. The 13th CPC Central • Separate the role of the Party • Theory of Public Choice The 7th NPC passed the Committee meeting and the state • The practice of power ordinance of Reform of (Oct 25-Nov 1, 1987) • Reform the cadre system decentralization in France, Institutions under the State and its 2nd Plenum • Promote economic and Japan, Germany, and the U.S. Council. (Mar 15-19, 1988) political structural reforms in the 1980s • Transform governmental function

The 14th CPC Central • Accelerate the transformation • Reinventing Government The 1st session of the 8th Committee (Oct 12- of governmental functions Theory NPC approved the State 18, 1992) and its 2nd • Streamline administrative • Entrepreneur Government Council’s Institutional Plenum (Mar 5-7, procedures and promote Theory Restructuring Plan. 1993) administrative efficiency • Flattening management in • E-government (i.e., the the governmental organization “Golden Projects” of 1993) • The introduction of electronic government in the U.S. in 1993 The 15th CPC Central • State-owned enterprises • Privatization and enterprise The 1st session of the 9th Committee (Sept 12- (SOEs) reform reform in the public sector NPC approved the State 18,1997) and its 2nd • Develop institutional features worldwide Council’s Institutional Plenum (Feb 25-26, to accommodate Socialist Restructuring Plan. 1998) Market Economy with Chinese Characteristics • Deliberate and adopt plans to restructure the State Council not a proposer and provider. This situation implies that cultural incompatibilities (Bhagat, Kedia, Harveston, the localization of academic research, which is both & Triandis, 2002; Lachman, Nedd, & Hinings, 1994). an intellectual and a politics-driven catchphrase long Actually, those late-movers should indeed focus on advocated in China, has mostly failed. the domestic application as well as adaptation of international approaches in order to survive in fierce How does China’s administration reform practice absorb global competitions and become less distracted by western theories? Several scholars do not endorse the their counterparts’ push. Analyzing the rationale of way in many developing countries to deal with the this “borrowing theory”, Huntington (1997) took a reform, which drew on the administrative experience historical example and denounced latent Western- of their developed countries regardless of potential centralism. As for China’s developmental trajectory, he

Zang & Sun • 103 When Western Administrative Theories Meet China’s Government Reforms: Do they fit? compared the diffusion of Indian Buddhism during the key concepts such as administrative performances, Han Dynasty with the Western-oriented transition after the decentralization of authorities, fiscal revenues the opening-up of 1979. Ancient China’s mainstream and expenditures or state capabilities. However, value system incorporated Buddhism as much as it these concepts and terminology deriving from supported imperial power and stability needs, but the prevailing international management doctrines are “Indianization” of China did not progress further and hard to measure and vulnerable to lexical distortion Chinese culture remained intact, even reforming the or excessive deduction in practice. Therefore, it is Buddhist rituals and celestial brief systems within difficult for scholars to analyze the actual effect of indigenous Taoism. Similarly, Huntington believed such reform. that Christianity, as a Western cultural export, would be absorbed but reshaped in a way that is compatible In China’s reform, two group of words are frequently with the essence of Chinese culture, given the fact that used, namely, the decentralization of authorities and “the Chinese have to date consistently defeated intense structural streamlining of central administrations, Western efforts to Christianize them” (Huntington, while the number of peer-reviewed publications on 1997). As an influential Sinology expert well versed related topics has also grown exponentially since the in Chinese policy and diplomatic affairs, Dr. Henry 1980s, according to the statistics of China National Kissinger tends to endorse Huntington’s perspective Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI). Nevertheless, that China’s path to global economic and political whether and to what extent have these two reform goals power cannot be arbitrarily attributed to an imitation been achieved? Existing research failed to answer of the West (Henry, 2011). this question adequately. We aim here to start to fill this gap with two groups of first-hand data. The first CHINA’S GOVERNMENT REFORM: GOALS group concerns the number variation in the Executive AND REALITIES Commands of China’s State Council and the second group delineates the change of the Council’s structure, If a theory is meant to guide practice, then, has China which is manifested in the overall number of new civil achieved its pragmatic or ideological goals through servants enrolled every year. the adaptation of foreign reform theories? What can be learned from the role of the Executive Most of the existing research on this issue relies on Commands of China’s State Council? Firstly, the Council issues Commands Figure 1. The Number of CSC, ASC, and RLSC of the State Council (CSC), which are of equal status to administrative law in China, including regulations and decisions as well as declarations regarding different subjects. Secondly, it issues Announcements of the State Council (ASC), which include suggestions and information about specific public affairs. Thirdly, the State Council releases Reply Letters of the State Council (RLSC), Data Source: State Council Bulletin, http://sousuo.gov.cn/a.htm?t=bulletin responding to inquiries and

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Table 3. The Number of Organizations after All Previous Reforms of the State Council

Ministries and Departments Directly under Administrative Office under Public Total Committee (M&C) the State Council (DD) the State Council (AO) Institutions (PI) 1954 35 19 8 \ 62 1956 48 24 8 \ 70 1959 39 14 6 \ 59 1965 49 22 8 \ 79 1970 \ \ \ \ 32 1975 29 19 4 \ 52 1978 37 32 7 \ 76 1982 43 14 2 \ 59 1988 41 19 6 \ 66 1994 40 13 5 11 69 1998 29 17 6 9 61 2003 28 18 4 14 64 2008 27 16 4 17 64 2013 25 17 7 13 62

Note: \ means figure-of-the-year unavailable. Figures come from the State Council Communiqués of the corresponding years. requests or debriefing of provincial governments. local governments in recent years. Sometimes, a third CSC, ASC, and RLSC reflect the degree of central or even more than half of local government expending government intervention and control over local in some western Chinese cities comes from transfers governments. from the central government, according to the national statistics. As Table 2 shows, China’s reforms continue to emphasize the imperative of generally more Another group of figures sketches a somewhat decentralization and practically less central disguised situation of apparatus establishment. The governmental interventions. However, Figure 1 State Council Communiqué shows clearly the lack reveals that the number of interventions and directives of quantitative changes in the institutional setting issued by the central government to local governments during each cycle of administrative reforms. As seen usually ebbs and flows. There was no significant decline in Table 3, the number of Ministries and Committees in number, which arouses doubts about the actual (M&C) has decreased in the past 60 years, but the effects of decentralization reform. Although it is often alternative departments increased in different forms difficult to differentiate and prioritize the importance mean the total number of institutes is relatively of CSC, ASC, and RLSC in the administration stable. This phenomenon indicates that the dismissed system, executive commands and orders obviously sectors in reform have transformed into other types play a crucial role in China’s politics. For instance, of departments in China. For example, some central local governments still have to make requests to ministries will become state-owned companies in the State Council or central ministries to invest in the areas of news and media, education, and railway. public infrastructure, such as the high-speed railway. Therefore, it is argued that the cycle of downsizing The Fiscal Transfer Payment System has become an and growth during administrative reform has never important means for the central government to control stopped. In fact, there has scarcely been any actual

Zang & Sun • 105 When Western Administrative Theories Meet China’s Government Reforms: Do they fit? streamlining in government organizations over the They tend to assume that China has similar conditions past 35 years. and can adopt corresponding reform measures, which has been proved effective in some western countries. In addition, another concern is that the Chinese However, the side effects of such a cognitive tendency government is hiring more and more people. Figure 2 are less accurate and usually ignored by academics. shows that the number of new civil servants in China It may help reduce logical difficulties in comparative has continued to increase over the past decade. It also research but it also leads to studies divorced from suggests that the number of Chinese civil servants has realities and partially affects research outcomes. not decreased in the past few reforms. Methodological shortcomings would impair the effectiveness of theoretical applications. For instance, THE DIFFICULT ADJUSTMENT PROCESS Chinese scholars are somewhat doctrinally following BETWEEN THEORIES AND PRACTICES recommendations proposed by the World Bank and other international organizations. These economic The above analysis indicates that China’s government giants have a long record of downplaying or ignoring reforms have not achieved the expected goals in cultural, historical, and institutional contests among theoretical research, although China is learning from countries when counseling on government reform. the experience of western administrative reform. Thus, the following two questions are to be discussed: what In fact, previous studies have pointed out that makes it difficult for China’s reforms to achieve their differences among countries are objectively complex goals, and what enlightenment can China’s experience factors that cannot be wished away through some and lessons bring to other developing countries? “universal” criteria. The potential causality between cultural background and the nature of government was The most important lesson concerns the danger widely discussed in Ruth Benedict’s Patterns of Culture of ignoring national context when implementing (1935), Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba’s The Civic international reform standards in one country. It is Culture (1963), as well as Samuel P. Huntington’s widely believed that the practice of public management The Clash of Civilizations (1996). Concerns about can consist of a general management model so that cultural differences can be traced back to the theories specific rules can be applied to different countries. of ancient Greek philosophers (such as Plato and Aristotle), Enlightenment Figure 2. Number of Jobs Posted and Number of Civil Servants thinkers (such as Rousseau Hired in China Central Government and Montesquieu), as well as modern liberal thinkers whose thoughts have been vividly illustrated in The Civic Culture (Almond & Verba, 1963). Some scholars focus on the formation of a country’s unique legal system; Montesquieu pointed out that “the political and civil laws of each nation should be the only particular case to which human reason is applied. The law may be applicable to the country in which it is Source: State Bureau of Civil Servants made, but it is not necessarily

106 • Chinese Public Administration Review Volume 9 Issue 2, December 2018 suitable for all the countries (De Montesquieu, 1989). administrative doctrines and Confucian tenets on This argument was later supported by Robert Dahl politicking. The initiatives of a nation towards who attributed the interaction between universality institutional restructuring and the expected goals and particularity to the keynote issue of “the science of this restructuring often reflect such ideological of public administration”: orientations, and foreign reform ideas should be adapted accordingly. Ideas or practices that have been “generalizations derived from the operation proven effective in Western countries have not always of public administration in the context of one had similar effects when blindly implemented in China. national-state cannot be universalized and Regarding this, foreign experiences are of little help. applied to public administration in a different Indeed, despite a gradual convergence towards global context. A principal may be applicable in a standards, China’s socialist political system remains different framework, but its applicability can be unique, and the introduction of foreign administration determined only after a study of that particular principles is still challenging. As Joseph Strayer warns, framework” (Dahl, 1947, p2). “institutions and beliefs must take root in native soil, or they will wither” (Strayer, 1963). Those admonishments, both classically and contemporarily, remain fresh in the guide to The biggest difference between China and western administrative reforms. For example, the approach countries is the relationship between the central and to governmental restructuring currently promoted by local governments, as well as the difference between the World Bank belittles the differences in cultural federalism and unitary. Changing socioeconomic backgrounds of countries. It is based on the hypothesis circumstances can impact the operation of local that “even if supranational governance is limited government in unique ways to each country. In sum, and hampered by divergent traditions, cultures, and the structural changes brought by globalization, the political preferences, developing a baseline set of evolution of political systems, and demographic administrative law tools and practices will strengthen variations all play an important role in government whatever supranational policy-making is undertaken” reforms (Andrew & Goldsmith, 1998). Those (Esty, 2006). This research hypothesis has long considerations, however, do not underestimate the stoked intense discussions and debates. Moreover, importance of conducting international comparative policies associated with the World Bank, IMF and research. For example, how to strengthen China’s inter- their donor countries often come under a barrage of provincial co-operation and why this is distinctive criticism from staunch nationalist or protectionist from America’s interstate relationships? What does campaigners. Therefore, to avoid critique, tactics it take to resolve the intertwined regional conflicts such as downplaying disadvantages and exaggerating of interests in France? What can we learn from the advantages of their conceptualization of governance French experience? Lastly, how can measures be are employed by these organizations. devised to enhance the integration between different governmental levels, thereby avoiding severe Apart from cultural-background differences on both confrontation between rural and urban authorities, an individual and a social level, comparative research which has been frequently observed in Southeast Asian on governmental restructuring should not ignore the nations? We should always remember the importance of discrepancies in political systems. Each political discrepancies between social and cultural institutions system is embedded in a distinctive background when conducting such international comparisons. which provides a priori mode for political thinking. The implementation of China’s institutional reforms Once a new public administration standard is is influenced by the government’s internalized established, path dependency makes it relatively stable socialist theory, encompassing the basic principles over a long period of time. Ideas, regimes (standards), of Marxism-Leninism as well as China’s traditional and paradigms not only derive from political system

Zang & Sun • 107 When Western Administrative Theories Meet China’s Government Reforms: Do they fit? innovation but also result in the formation of of voters. The emphasis on this difference will prevent ideologies at various stages of institutional innovation. our research from going to the risk of devolving into It is important for Chinese scholars to conduct rational nothing more than “deeply significant nonsense” indigenous research while making the best use of (Popper, 2012). Chinese and Western cultural input and profiting from the critical uptake of Western modes of government Second, how can we enhance the effectiveness of reforms. Given the aforementioned analysis, further China’s reforms? From the standpoint of dialectics, comments concerning research methods are required. we have to admit that the Western theories of institutional reforms do provide new theoretical tools First, how can we understand the role of theoretical and examples for developing countries to establish study in government reform? The features of new models of administrative management. However, governmental institutions are different in each country, we should not ignore the fact that Western theories but this fact has not stopped people from ignoring and practices are based on a developed system of national differences in comparative studies. A hidden information sharing, organizational cooperation, and hypothesis is formed in the comparative study, namely, quality of government employees, which remains a the whole bureaucratic system has similar features or remote goal for a great majority of developing regimes. will be transformed in the same way. It is particularly Therefore, on one hand, scholars need to learn from obvious in the comparative researchers on reform the advanced ideas and experience in the Western paradigms. If researchers ignore the differences in world. On the other hand, China’s administrative the social background between China and other reform also needs to find solutions from its own countries, both theoretically and practically, this may practices. And all of these are inseparable from the lead to the misuse and abuse of foreign theories. support of specific think tanks, whose scholars of Due to the arbitrary applications instead of empirical China introduce Western theories and practices as well observations and factual descriptions, this kind of as provide valuable information to policy-makers. research approach can lead to biased conclusions, as When introducing Western theories and practices, criticized by Émile Durkheim: “instead of a science scholars need to keep in mind the imbalance of concerned with realities, we produce no more than development reality between North and South. In fact, ideological analysis” (Durkheim, 2014). we need to learn more western social science methods to analyze the reforms. For example, when it comes The empirical analysis of reforms since China’s to case studies, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (see opening-up concludes as follows: institutional Figure 3) (AHP), put forward by Professor T. L. Saaty, reforms in China were implemented during a period an American operational research expert, has gained when the first priority of all reforms was to suit and popularity among researchers who are struggling serve the needs of economic competitiveness. China’s with comprehending the labyrinthine as well as institutional reforms, unlike those in Western countries, unquantifiable differences among nations (Saaty, are thus economic-oriented model: over the past 30 1988). The AHP is a convenient, flexible, and effective years, the five-year governmental reform has always multi-criterion decision analysis method notably taken place concurrently with economic reforms. This applicable for the quantitative analysis of qualitative conformity implies a high degree of correlation and questions. Rather than prescribing a “correct” interdependence between the political and economic decision, the AHP helps policy-makers find a solution areas in China. Although the government reform is that suits their goals. It offers a comprehensive and to promote the development of market economy, it rational framework for the structuring policy-making still contains a lot of ideological factors. Furthermore, process, and for evaluating alternative solutions. China’s reforms place greater emphasis on the role of leaders and the communist party, while western In China, think tanks are booming nowadays, which reforms put more emphasis on how to meet the needs can promote the effectiveness of China’s reforms.

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Figure 3. The Simple Analytic Hierarchy Process Model

Improvements in research methods are more Accordingly, China’s experiences highlight the need important. Using tools like the AHP, Chinese think to carefully consider the methodology of policy tanks should provide alternative policy proposals and research. analyze the pros and cons of these policies according to clear standards. In other words, think tanks are the In terms of the three questions we put forward at presenters of policy proposals, rather than advocators the beginning, firstly, the relationships between or demonstrators of them. Government officials need international theories and China’s public administration to analyze the characteristics of different policies and efforts have been explained. Since the start of the then make decisions based on the proposals of think reform and opening up in the late 1970s, China has tanks. continuously reformed its public administration. Policies in previous reforms, however, looked quite CONCLUSION similar to those in western countries, indicating that imitations may have taken place. Besides, according The reforms of China’s administrative system have to Lieberthal (1986), scholars who had been trained in drawn lessons from foreign theories and experience Mainland China could hardly make a difference in the focusing on two aspects: the decentralization evolution of political science. Therefore, as is shown of authority and the streamlining of the central in our research, China’s reforms of government were administration. In this paper, we emphasize the need not only based on domestic conditions but also had a to consider the impact of country-specific factors strong connection with international practices. in the processes of policy diffusion and transfer of reform knowledge. By doing so, we aim to avoid a Secondly, the intended goals arising from single-minded theoretical transplantation as often administrative reforms are a castle in the air in China. found in comparative studies, while maintaining the Through our analysis, we can see that China has ability to share lessons across developing countries. achieved institutional downsizing. For example, the As it were, we are not trying to overemphasize central government institutions are getting smaller. China’s uniqueness but rather, the inability to study its However, the effectiveness of decentralization reforms reforms through the lens of theories developed based in local areas still needs to be improved, and the on systems in Western countries. It is argued that the central government can still intervene strongly in local problem of “incommensurability” among cultures is governments. We believe that the Chinese government an obstacle to our understandings of the formation has not achieved the desired reform goals, which does and development of a certain political system. This is not mean that the theory of reform is wrong but that we not just an epistemological consideration, but a real ignore China’s special background when we borrow practical dilemma for comparative political studies. from western theories. In addition, the total number of

Zang & Sun • 109 When Western Administrative Theories Meet China’s Government Reforms: Do they fit? institutions is relatively stable, which is caused by the of central government agencies. And the roles of fact that lots of ministries and committees have been central government agencies in the extant research transformed into other types of institutions, bringing are not scrutinized (Ma, 2017). However, there still about nothing to change in China’s administrative exist some shortcomings in our study due to reasons reforms. The number of civil servants has continued including insufficient official information, which to grow over the last decade and the State Council has necessitates more research into this field. For a long hired more and more officials, which might impair the time, the public has known almost nothing about the ongoing streamlining process of central government. policy-making processes of government reforms. In In short, we have made some success in previous fact, it is difficult to find a special trigger to break the reforms, but as for the expected targets, there is still a monopoly of administrative information held by the long way to go. government. However, we hope that our study pushes researchers to open the “black box” of this field even Thirdly, China’s administrative reforms not only learn further. from foreign experience but also provide insights for similar initiatives in the developing world. The REFERENCES administrative reform itself is a systematic complex, which manifests both Chinese elements and Western Almond, G. A., & Verba, S. (1963). The Civic Culture: fragments. Thus, the crucial challenge for China’s Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations: governmental reforms is how to balance the impact Princeton University Press. of previous Western practices with its own experience Andrew, C., & Goldsmith, M. (1998). From local or history. Many overseas experiences claiming government to local governance—and beyond? to be universally successful are unsustainable as International Political Science Review, 19(2), 101- time goes on, which might not be suitable for one 117. country’s context embedded in the period of social Andrews, M. (2013). The Limits of Institutional and political transformations. Therefore, the ability of Reform in Development: Changing Rules for one countries’ governmental officials and think tanks Realistic Solutions: Cambridge University Press. to judge and integrate are required for successful Askim, J., Christensen, T., Fimreite, A. L., & reforms. In summary, any designs of administrative Lægreid, P. (2009). How to carry out joined-Up reforms need to be examined, and their effectiveness government reforms: Lessons from the 2001–2006 should be reconsidered by means of explorations and Norwegian welfare reform. Intl Journal of Public experiments, rather than indiscriminate imitations. Administration, 32(12), 1006-1025. Aufrecht, S. E., & Bun, L. S. (1995). Reform with To sum up, we cannot ignore the differences in Chinese characteristics: The context of Chinese context and political system between China and civil service reform. Public Administration Review, Western countries. Therefore, the best attitude 175-182. towards Westernized theories is to be rational, which Bhagat, R. S., Kedia, B. L., Harveston, P. D., & means that appreciation, as well as the criticism, Triandis, H. C. (2002). Cultural variations in the should coexist when we apply the theories of cross-border transfer of organizational knowledge: Western public administrative reforms. In this way, An integrative framework. Academy of management we believe, the government can better carry out review, 27(2), 204-221. the public administration reforms and enhance its Burns, J. P. (2000). Public sector reform and the competitiveness. state: The case of China. Public Administration Quarterly, 419-436. It is worth noting that this paper explores the way Caulfield, J. L. (2006). The politics of bureau reform in which China’s government reforms have taken in sub-Saharan Africa. Public Administration and place in the past few decades based on the change Development, 26(1), 15–26.

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Governing the Neighborhood with Confucian Ideas Wai-Hang Yee*, Weijie Wang†, Terry L. Cooper^ * The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong; † University of Missouri, USA; ^ University of Southern California, USA Attributes of communities have long been considered a major influence on people’s self-organized governing behavior (Ostrom 2005). Does Confucianism, a widely shared set of traditional ideas, inform Chinese homeowners in governing their neighborhoods? Based on in-depth interviews with 27 homeowner association (HOA) organizers from 16 neighborhoods in Beijing, we found evidence suggesting that their governing behaviors were informed by traditional Confucian conceptual distinctions and normative expectations: Stringent expectations were found on HOA organizers to serve with purely “public” motives and renounce “private” ones; neighborhood management, meanwhile, was not merely considered as a means for improving living conditions, but a patriotic act of serving the country. Arguably, these meanings corresponded to the Confucian ideal of junzi and its guide to moral cultivation. They helped sustain homeowners’ participation and promote a social norm that maintained accountability for their behaviors. The findings suggest further research on neighborhood governance, and contribute to the reforming governance of contemporary China.

ome ownership in China surged in the last few This change in neighborhood governance presents decades since the cessation of government excellent self-governing opportunities and housing provision based on welfare principles correspondingly major challenges to the Chinese people H 2 in 1998 and the subsequent marketization process (Chen, 2009). Ever since the founding of communist (Huque, 2005; Ye & Wu, 2008; Dong, Christensen China, ordinary Chinese have been de facto “subjects” & Painter, 2010). These reforms have given rise of the party-state, enjoying limited political and to a variety of governance issues in private urban economic rights (Wang, Li & Cooper, 2015). Despite neighborhoods, and correspondingly a number of local the long history of self-governance among extended governing structures such as community-run non- family members in many traditional villages of dynastic profit entities, social organizations and homeowner China (Fei, 2008/1947), it is only recently that economic associations (Wang, 2008; Read, 2007; Liu, 2008). liberalization and administrative reforms have gradually Notable among these structures is the possibility of transformed the post-revolutionary state-society establishing homeowner associations (HOAs) (Yip, relationship to a more equal one. This legally guaranteed 2014). Homeowners’ right to establish HOAs is now right to form HOAs, and thus the right to assemble and safeguarded by the Property Rights Law enacted in collectively decide on private neighborhood matters, 2007 (in particular Article 75 and 76). The law allows represents one major advancement in opportunities for property owners of residential complexes to establish political participation for the ordinary people. an HOA committee, elect its members, convene regular meetings, hire and control their property management Just as in many developing countries experiencing rapid firm, and manage affairs of their neighborhood.1 modernization, China has observed a major tension

The authors are grateful for the constructive comments of the two reviewers. Address correspondence to Wai-Hang Yee, C941, The Jockey Club Tower, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. Email: [email protected]. View this article at cpar.net

1 Available online at http://www.gov.cn/flfg/2007-03/19/content_554452.htm. Last accessed 22 November 2015. 2 Many interpretations of “governance” were found in the literature (for example, Le Galès, 1998; Pierre & Peters, 2000; Rhodes, 2014). We follow Bevir and conceive governance broadly as “all processes of governing, whether undertaken by a government, market, or network; whether over a family, tribe, corporation, or territory; and whether by laws, norms, power, or language. [It] is a broader term than government because it focuses not only on the state and its institutions but also on the creation of rule and order in social practices” (2013, 1). See also Ostrom (1990). 113 • Chinese Public Administration Review Governing the Neighborhood with Confucian Ideas between preserving traditional governing cultures and residential committees (RCs), instituted by the Chinese practices versus reforming them towards some modern, Communist Party and managed directly by Street rational-legal arrangements (Commons, 2009/1925). Offices, the lowest, subdistrict-level government of For one thing, many Chinese homeowners, as first- China. Although they are supposed to be the venue in time property buyers in the private market, may not which “residents engage in ‘self-administration, self- be disposed to comprehend and accept the often- education, and self-service’”, RCs now consist of not ambiguous boundaries between individual and shared volunteers but “three to seven paid staff”, with their main property rights. Further, collective efforts and broad- function being “fusing … government administration based agreements are hard to formulate for managing with local social networks”; they are to “facilitate … their shared properties, given the general lack of efficacy government programs” through “cultivating positive and experience in civic deliberation, or sometimes relations with those who are receptive to their work” simply the large number of homeowners they needed to and “us[ing] persuasion and social pressure to defuse organize. How did Chinese homeowners approach and any group demands by residents before these are taken seek to overcome various governing difficulties when out of the neighborhood and into the streets or onto realizing their new rights? Were their behaviors any the doorsteps of government agencies” (Read 2003, different from those of other countries? 37-38). A predecessor of HOA may be found in 1994 when the Ministry of Construction announced that EXPERIENCES OF NEIGHBORHOOD residents should form their own elected committees to GOVERNANCE select their property management company to manage their neighborhood. Yet residents were constrained The emergence of self-governing institutions in urban heavily by local housing and other administrative neighborhoods has attracted much scholarly attention agencies (e.g., the Ministry of Civil Affairs) with their in the last decade (for example, Webster, 2003; Baer oversight and subsequent stipulations. For example, a & Feiock, 2005; Musso, Weare, Oztas & Loges, 2006; “preparatory group” (introduced in 2000) consisting Farrelly & Sullivan, 2010). The phenomenon has been of the developer, the management company, local considered a “constitutional revolution” (Nelson, government, and the police was required to establish 2005), or the rise of “local federalism” (Fung & Wright, these committees (Read 2003, 43-44). In other words, 2001; Box & Musso, 2004).3 Against worries about for a lot of the Chinese people, this possibility of societal fragmentation with the development of gated establishing and operating HOAs represents less of a communities, these scholars argue that participation in revival of democratic experience than the first taste of neighborhood governance fundamentally revitalizes self-organization for governing their neighborhoods people’s democratic experience, as it usually involves in contemporary China. careful deliberation and collective decisions among the people. Apart from homeowners’ inexperience, their neighborhood governing efforts might also be hindered In China, however, the change in neighborhood by their lack of understanding of the rights and the governance follows a different trajectory. Unlike their corresponding limits as property owners (Chen, Western counterparts, Chinese homeowners do not 2009; Fu & Lin, 2014). Major disputes often arose have much modern-democratic governing experience, on the management of their jointly-owned properties. and Western concepts such as modern citizenship Individual homeowners might show little regard for and democratic principles are relatively new to them. others’ rights to the communal properties, for example, Ever since the establishment of modern China, urban knocking down a load-bearing wall to enlarge private neighborhood affairs have been the responsibility of space or taking over portions of the common garden space for personal use. They would also disagree with one another on how the HOA should be established, 3 For a more skeptical view on the democratic promise of these “private governments” (McKenzie 1996; 2011). and how it should be operated if established. The

114 • Chinese Public Administration Review Volume 9 Issue 2, December 2018 norms and practices of deliberation and citizen degree of success) in their self-governing effort. For participation have remained weakly developed. It has example, there were cases of civic actions such as not been uncommon for individual homeowners to picketing, freeway blocking, litigations in local courts, grow suspicious of other active homeowners. They petitioning to higher authorities, sit-ins in government would disagree on the usage of the communal fund, offices, and even of participating and campaigning the choice of the best property management firm, or in local government elections (Wang 2008, 22–23). the meeting, election and decision procedures. Many Most importantly, some neighborhoods did succeed also showed little respect for the authority of the in forming their HOA, as shown by its relatively HOA, refusing to pay the required management fees, reasonable establishment rate (Wang, Yin & Zhou, or simply ignoring its decisions. 2011), and sustain their operation. How can one make sense of their persistent endeavors to neighborhood Challenges to their effort do not just come from the governance and explain their success given the inside. Legally speaking, the establishment of an unfavorable historical and political contexts? It is with HOA requires an agreement of more than 1/2 of all these questions we review the various approaches to the unit owners who collectively own more than studying neighborhood governance in the literature. 1/2 of the total area of the neighborhood. The sheer number of households needed to be mobilized before APPROACHES IN NEIGHBORHOOD the establishment of HOAs is already a daunting GOVERNANCE STUDIES challenge, especially for larger condominium projects. Moreover, developers might delay their establishment In general, a neighborhood consists of privately- and thus the transfer of rights to hire and control owned residential units and shared neighborhood property management firms when maintaining such properties, such as gardens. The good governance control was profitable—Developers often generated of its communal features is fundamental to the well- additional revenue which they pocketed by leasing being of its residents as well as its property owners. homeowners’ parking spaces to local businesses Depending on the situation, relevant actors usually and individual outsiders, their garden spaces for involve individual residents, unit owners, developers, parties and weddings, or even the buildings’ walls property management units, and sometimes for advertising signs. When homeowners finally government officials and offices of local districts. realized and complained about these practices, they were at best ignored, or at worst physically attacked The problems and difficulties in homeowners’ by the security personnel of management firms hired neighborhood governance effort can be conceptualized by the developers. Local government authorities as an ongoing series of collective action problems were not very helpful in a lot of these situations. In among the property owners (Olson, 1965; Chen fact, homeowners often accused the street offices & Webster, 2005). According to Olson’s theory of of colluding with local developers and property collective action (1965), members of a group, who are management firms. Local governments, meanwhile, assumed to be rational self-interest maximizers, will might consider homeowners’ efforts at organizing and not engage in organizing for collective actions unless complaining as “homeowner rebellion”, disturbing their respective gain is larger than their private cost the supposedly harmonious relationship between the of organizing. A well-managed neighborhood (such state, market, and the people. Overall, the political as good neighborhood facilities and environment) is environment has not been very conducive to the self- hard to attain, as it is easy for individual residents to governing efforts of the homeowners. free-ride on others for its production. A recent study of urban communities in Guangzhou, for example, In spite of all these challenges, some homeowners highlighted the “hidden costs of civic engagement” did manage to mobilize other neighborhood members as one major factor impeding homeowners’ voluntary and overcome various difficulties (albeit with a mixed participation in neighborhood affairs (Fu & Lin,

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2014). It is especially so when its consumption is not considered in neighborhood governance (Box & readily excludable as unit owners are often entitled to Musso, 2004; Nelson, 2005; Musso, Weare, Oztas roughly equal rights based on their share of ownership & Loges, 2006). This perspective sees neighborhood in the neighborhood. In a functioning property market, governance as constituted by a nexus of social ties, dissatisfied property owners may always try to sell in which individuals may develop various kinds of their properties and move elsewhere, and a market- informal relationships with one another (e.g., kinship, based order is said to emerge from the exchange of friendship, ethnicity, acquaintance) (Chaskin, 1997). neighborhood properties (Webster, 2003; Baer & Patterns in their organizing behaviors are then explained Feiock, 2005). Neighborhood governance thus may be by some structural properties and configurations of seen as a nexus of contracts (Webster, 2003), formed these social networks (Weare, Lichterman & Esparza, among the constitutive property owners based on their 2014; Musso & Weare, 2006; Wang, 2015)4, as well as interests, private and public information about the the social capital (e.g., mutual trust) accumulated in property, as well as the transaction costs associated the neighborhood among the homeowners (Fu & Lin, with the exchange. 2014). The perspective focuses on how neighborhood governance is understood through the nexus of From this perspective, the neighborhood may also be embedded social relationships, which mediate people’s governed indirectly through some proxies; property interaction in the process (Granovetter, 1985). The owners may set up and utilize institutional structures successful governing of the neighborhood depends such as neighborhood councils (organized voluntarily on whether structural characteristics of the embedded by the residents) or homeowner associations social networks are conducive to some collective (organized by real estate developers based on written efforts required in neighborhood governance. restrictions in title deeds), and through which property management companies may be hired to manage Individuals, under this perspective, may also create and neighborhood affairs on behalf of the homeowners. sustain informal institutions for various neighborhood Although mixed empirical evidence was found governing purposes (Ostrom, 2005; also Elster, 2015). regarding their respective impacts, the successful These institutions are enforced socially, sustained establishment and operation of these governing through such mechanisms as ostracism, shaming, structures usually increase the property value in the reciprocity, and reputation (Nee, 2005). They help neighborhood (Scheller, 2015; Craw, 2017), and govern who may manage the neighborhood, and their success depends largely on the property owners how. For example, in some developing countries deriving agreements for efficient monitoring and with weaker legal systems, informal institutions accountability systems. Problems may arise if the help residents demarcate each others’ property, owners fail to agree on the corresponding management indicating their de facto ownership (de Soto, 2000). rules and measures: for example, the selection criteria Features such as face-to-face communication, smaller of representatives, the size of management fees, or the groups, and those with members of similar interests power to be assigned to the governing committee. As and resources are all conducive to the development Craw (2017, 709) argues, neighborhoods governed by of these institutions, which help induce cooperation voluntary efforts may suit better the residents’ interests, and resolve collective action problems among the but without the help of some formal governance neighborhood members (Ostrom, 1998). mechanisms (e.g., local codes and regulations), the high cost of organizing informally may undermine these efforts. 4 For example, an investigation in the neighborhood councils in Los Angeles found that communities with lower social status had more diverse boards if both the mechanisms of “elite bias” and “homophily” Since the last decade, more and more scholars have were present, as compared to the presence of the mechanism of modified the rational actor assumption and proposed “homophily” alone, whereas membership diversity in neighborhood community had a weak relationship with the community’s political that the influence of social relationships should be tolerance and its access to information (Weare, Musso & Jun, 2009).

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Neighborhood Governance as a Nexus of members communicate with one another. On the other Shared Meanings hand, despite the apparent autonomy, their assignment The above perspectives, however, do not provide of meanings is often conditioned culturally and a full explanation regarding why property owners’ historically. Communities experienced common have those preferences and why certain types of historical events or sharing similar cultural traditions institutional arrangements and practices are pursued tend to assign comparable meanings to make sense and more welcomed than others. To answer these of and discuss various governance matters (Bevir, questions, we propose an alternative perspective 2013). These shared meanings serve as the basis for which takes into account the context of homeowners’ dialogues and potential consensus on neighborhood embedded community (Ostrom, 2005) and sees governing matters. For researchers who are interested neighborhood governance as constituted of a nexus of in explaining neighborhood governance, it is essential shared meanings. to go beyond considerations of individual interests and incentives, or the embedded social network Social actions inherently carry meanings (Weber, and associated capital and norm, to their embedded 1978). A view commonly shared by interpretive meaning contexts underlying their interests and social theorists (Bevir, 2012) is that individuals do not live relationships, as well as the institutional structures in a vacuum but in a “web of significance” which they and practices pursued and adopted in the governing have spun (Geertz, 1973). These meanings influence process. actions and are also sustained by them. To understand human behaviors, the meanings behind people’s THE RELEVANCE OF CONFUCIAN IDEAS actions needs to be understood. Generally speaking, meanings are constructed as people assign their To understand better Chinese homeowners’ endeavor subjective conceptions to things such as objects, events, to neighborhood governance and overcoming various and experiences. Meanings may be recognized and collective action challenges in the process, we looked remembered; they may also be shared and transferred into the self-narratives of these homeowners—how as they are expressed, communicated, negotiated they described themselves and their involvement in and/or contested. Meanings are often manifested neighborhood governance. As an exploratory study, in people’s narratives, or stories, as distinctions, we drew our data from residential neighborhoods in categories, and logics (Patterson & Monroe, 1998). As Beijing. Beijing has been the capital of China both people develop more complicated relationships with before and after the revolution for more than half a and among these concepts, the web of meanings can millennium. Arguably the influence it received from become very entangled and complicated, to the extent a major traditional culture, Confucianism, should that people may simply take them for granted as social be one of the most salient; Beijing should be a good facts (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991). litmus test for exploring the utility of our proposed perspective that focuses on shared meanings in Studies have adopted this interpretive approach to neighborhood governance. understanding neighborhood-related phenomena (Glover, 2004; Campbell, Henly, Elliott & Irwin, Confucianism has been a strong source of cultural 2009). Applying it specifically to neighborhood influence in China. The classical texts of Confucianism governance, the perspective suggests that the have been held in high regard by generations of multiplex conceptions and associations homeowners scholars. The Analects, and Daxue, together with had regarding their neighborhood and its governance the Mencius and Zhongyong were mandated since constitute their diverse attitudes and behaviors. On the the Song dynasty to be the four required texts for the one hand, these meanings may be assigned individually national public service examinations until the end of by the homeowners to their governing actions, and/ imperial China. There were hiatuses in the promotion or expressed and become shared as neighborhood of Confucianism in the 20th Century. It was bitterly

Yee, Wang, & Cooper • 117 Governing the Neighborhood with Confucian Ideas criticized at the time around the May Fourth Movement Note here that the social unit of “family” plays a in 1919, and during the Cultural Revolution (Solé- significant role in the cultivation of personal virtue, Farràs, 2013; Wu, 2014). Yet its influence continues. and one’s path to become a nobleman. Daxue, Zuo and Benford (1995) in their study of the student another Confucian classic, proposes that “The Way democratic movement in 1989, for example, found of The Great Learning” (daxue zhi dao 大學之道) that one strategy students used in the mobilization is to manifest luminous virtue and stop only at the process was aligning the movement frames with some “ultimate goodness”. It discusses in detail the path later variations of Confucianism.5 (This showed that, that a nobleman should follow in his pursuit of The at least among the movement participants, Confucian Way (Johnston & Wang, 2012, 135):8 ideas such as a sense of responsibility and self-sacrifice The ancients, in wishing to manifest luminous still resonated strongly in post-imperial China. More virtue in the world, first brought good order to recently, Confucianism is experiencing a revival, their states. In wishing to bring good order to in part due to the sponsorship by the Communist their states, they first regulated their households. government, which sees Confucianism as a critical In wishing to regulate their households, they first moral resource to promote social responsibility and cultivated themselves. In wishing to cultivate stability. The revival has been attributed to the fact themselves, they first rectified their minds. In that people are turning to traditional ideas in order to wishing to rectify their minds, they first made find meanings and peace in response to the anxiety their intentions cheng 誠 (true, genuine, sincere). and atomism brought by fast economic modernization In wishing to make their intentions cheng in the past three decades (Bell, 2014; Wu, 2014). 誠, they first extended their knowledge to the limit. Extending knowledge to the limit lies in A brief discussion of Confuciansim as a school of investigating things. thought is warranted here. Confucianism emphasizes the importance of cultivating personal virtue (de 德). This idea bridges two main goals of Confucianism: Despite its many variations and later development, “inner saint” (neisheng 內聖) with “outer merit/ Confucianism regards individuals with noble virtue as benevolence” (waiwan 外王), or noble virtues in the “nobleman” (junzi 君子). While it is commonly known private realm with good deeds in the public realm that the major virtue of a nobleman is compassion (ren (Yu, 2010b, 22). The passage advises one to start with 仁), another major virtue is yi (義). Yi may be broadly perfecting his character and knowledge in the private translated as “righteousness (or justice)”, and is in realm, continue with cultivating his inner virtue, contrast with “interest” (li 利) (Yu, 2010a/1987, 205- managing well his family and country, and eventually 206). As quoted in the Analects, “The Master said, contributing himself to the world. Overall, the text ‘The gentleman [nobleman] understands what is moral describes what a nobleman’s ultimate life goal should [righteousness] / The small man understands what is be, and details practical guidelines on how this ideal profitable [interest]” (Analects, 4.16, translated by D. can be achieved (Yu, 2010b). C. Lau 1983).6 The distinction between righteousness and interest runs parallel with the distinction between “public (or common)” (gong 公) and “private” (si 私) (Yu, 2010a/1987, 205-206). According to The

Book of Rites (Li Ji 禮記), “When the Grand course 5 For instance, “tianxia xingwang / pifu youze” (天下興亡／匹夫有責, was pursued, ‘a public and common spirit ruled all every individual is responsible for the rise and fall of the world). 6 A comprehensive online source of Chinese literature, ctext.org, under the sky’ (tianxia wei gong 天下為公) (Li Yun translates the paragraph as “The Master said, ‘The mind of the superior 1)”.7 Affairs of the public are considered the task of man is conversant with righteousness; the mind of the mean man is conversant with gain.’” Available online at http://ctext.org/analects/li-ren. noblemen; In other words, nobelmen are expected to Last accessed 15 February 2015. contribute to what is public and righteous, and not 7 Available online at http://ctext.org/liji/li-yun. Last accessed 15 February 2015. what is private and interest-related. 6 We adopt Zhuxi’s interpretation here for convenience.

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RESEARCH CONTEXT AND METHODS comparative method (Glaser, 1965). Facilitated by the software NVivo 10, the data analysis started with open Would traces of major Confucian ideas such as the coding, which gave us some initial categories. We above be found to inform contemporary Chinese next formulated some working hypotheses that linked homeowners’ neighborhood governance behaviors? some of these categories. The working hypotheses The study collected its empirical evidence in 2013 were then tested further. Those that withstood the tests by conducting semi-structured interviews with past were kept and became the major arguments of this and current organizers of homeowner associations in paper, as presented below. Beijing. Structured questions were asked to understand why they joined in organizing the homeowners in FINDINGS their neighborhoods in the first place and to elicit their thoughts and experience in the process; Open-ended Progression from Individual through questions were also raised during the interviews Neighborhood to Country to stimulate deeper dialogues (see Appendix). Our Our interviewees often considered their involvement collaborators in Beijing, a nonprofit organization in neighborhood affairs as part of their contribution which specialized in homeowners’ advocacy, helped to the country. They felt that their work in the arrange the first set of interviews with past or current neighborhood would promote the country’s HOA organizers from six different neighborhoods. We development. The association seemed so natural that then adopted a snowball sampling approach by asking it was often mentioned without much supportive these interviewees to introduce us to HOA organizers reasoning. We contended that this association might from other neighborhoods. Each interview lasted for find its root in one strain of Confucianism: virtuous 2-3 hours. The interviews took two forms: one-on- individuals should cultivate themselves, regulate their one interviews and focus group discussions. We had households, and then contribute to the good order of seven focus groups, each of which had a number of their states. Such an ethical idea imbued a special homeowners. The group discussions created rapport responsibility to the homeowners, motivating them to and synergy among the interviewees, which gave us look beyond immediate personal interests. some in-depth knowledge about their thoughts and experiences. We stopped at the point of data saturation For example, one organizer (B), who graduated from when we felt that we repeatedly came across similar a top Chinese university and worked as a journalist information. In the end, our sample included 27 and a teacher before, described how he first realized homeowners from 16 different neighborhoods. While the broader implications of his effort in organizing the literature tends to conduct field observations to homeowners. He saw that his behavior could have examine the dynamics of homeowners interacting important consequences for both “China” and with one another in the organizing process (e.g., “Chinese society”: O’Brien & Li, 2006; Zhu, 2011), our focus on their When I first wanted to do it [organizing self-narratives allows the interviewees to take a homeowners], I thought that I could not let the step back from the often-contentious negotiating neighborhood continue to be chaotic. I did not process, and reflect deeply upon the motivations of have the vocabularies of rights-protection or their behaviors, the rationales behind their concerns democracy. However, very soon in half a month, and arguments, and more generally their roles in the I realized what this means to China, what is process. It fits our purpose of uncovering the meanings politics, what is society, and what Chinese society they ascribed to themselves and their involvement, needs. the knowledge of which, as argued above, provides a deeper understanding of the cultural and historical Another interviewee, homeowner D, was an expert contexts underlying the neighborhood governing in protecting homeowners’ rights and organizing process. We analyzed the data with the constant homeowners to establish HOAs. He was often invited

Yee, Wang, & Cooper • 119 Governing the Neighborhood with Confucian Ideas to train homeowners in other neighborhoods: We women actually don’t really care much I was invited [to train homeowners] when they about big issues. And it [participation in wanted to establish their new HOAs. You should neighborhood affairs] is just a natural thing learn how to be responsible and figure out how for us because after we have taken care of our to unite your neighbors. We have to do something house and family, it is natural that we are going for ourselves, and for our country. We cannot to take care of the community environment escape [this]. surrounding us. We move from things inside our To him, the training of homeowners in other family to things outside of our family, such as the neighborhoods was not just about helping them protect stairs [in apartment buildings], and then to our their property rights. It was part of a larger effort to neighborhood and even to areas across the road... actualize the inescapable obligation to themselves and the country. In another case, such an “individual-country” relation even served to legitimize their behavior. Another homeowner, (E), saw organizing homeowners The neighborhood of homeowner C1 faced some as a contribution to a more civil and democratic unfavorable conditions, mentioned above, in setting society: up the HOA, and the homeowners encountered some I think this [organizing homeowners] is a government officials who thought that their effort was foundation of the Chinese society. Why cannot we “revolting against the government”. She defended make democracy work in Chinese society? It is their behaviors as part of the effort in “perfecting” because this foundation is not good. It is difficult national development. to organize ordinary people, and they don’t even Actually, from a macro perspective, our know how to have meetings [to discuss public establishment of a homeowners association is for affairs] as well as how to protect their interests. perfecting “country-family (or national)” (guojia 國家) construction. But during the process, The frequent appearance of this “individual-country” government officials thought that we were association invites further interpretation. The leap revolting against the government, picking on their from personal behavior to its implications for China problems. They have the wrong idea. may sound abrupt logically, if not pretentious, to In fact, she even went on to develop a more some readers, but it makes sense if we see it from comprehensive conception of citizenship and evaluate the Confucian perspective. As discussed above, the government officials against it accordingly: Confucianism expects virtuous individuals to not only I think they [homeowners] have a strong perfect their private behaviors but also contribute to the [sense of] social responsibility. That is, as a good order of the state. The “individual-country” link “human-being” (ren 人), we should not only be mirrors the sequence from “regulating households” an “agreeable/obedience-person [of a country] to “bringing order to states” in Confucianism. As (shunmin 順民), and “good-person [of a country] homeowners saw their work in the neighborhood as (liangmin 良民); we should also be a “public- part of their inescapable responsibility to the society, person [of a country] (gongmin 公民).9 “Public- they devoted more time and energy to homeowner person” carries a lot of weight—public affairs, organizing. country’s affairs. Civil servants have to know what their role is: you are to serve everyone. Some homeowners elaborated this linkage in more Because what they [the civil servants] get is detail. A female HOA organizer (A3) explained taxpayers’ money. [They] should learn from us. how “natural” it was to progress from taking care of one’s household affairs to community affairs 9 The term is commonly translated as “citizen”. However, in the Chinese when commenting on women’s participation in context, the association between “citizen” and its associated rights is neighborhood affairs: usually not emphasized, as suggested by her elaboration.

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Our homeowners have not even given us any people who focus on small personal interests money! (xiao li 小利).

From our perspective, this Confucian idea of social It was widely reported that in order to garner trust and responsibility not only constituted their neighborhood support from other homeowners, one’s motive had to involvement but also helped them counter government be related mostly, if not completely, to “public”. For officials’ frame of “homeowner rebellion”. It conferred instance, when homeowner C1 was trying to garner legitimacy to their behavior, allowing them to stand others’ support in the neighborhood, she described the against political obstruction and continue with their establishment of HOA as a “public-beneficial” (gongyi action. 公益) event that required strong dedication: The other day we were saying why [we failed] Sharp distinction between public and private to establish our homeowners’ association. And Our interviews also found that homeowners associated I said establishing homeowners’ association is special meanings with the concepts of “public” (gong a “public- beneficial” (gongyi公益 ) event. One 公) and “private” (si 私). They classified and evaluated has to dedicate oneself, dedicate his efforts and their own as well as other homeowners’ behaviors financial resources. against a norm that distinguished strictly between the two concepts; an effort that might be suspected Homeowner K also reported with pride that no one in as serving private gains was detested and severely his team carried with them a “private-heart” (sixin 私 criticized. To many interviewees, organizing for the 心): neighborhood represented a service to the “public”. We all work in accordance with the regulations. The term “public” often had a positive connotation. We hold ourselves to a high standard. And in our Homeowner B, for example, described himself as team no one brings in his “private-heart” (sixin “public-spirited” and had a “public personality” when 私心), so we are very united. explaining why he started organizing homeowners for his neighborhood: Organizing effort might be criticized for serving I am the kind of person who is public- “private” interests. As reported, homeowner M spirited and have a public personality. I care complained about her experiences with local a lot about public affairs. When the property governments. The officials were suspicious of their management firm sued 16 or 17 homeowners motives and criticized them as having in it “private- in my neighborhood because they did not pay interest”: property management fee, I was worried that our We had a big headache when dealing with the neighborhood would become tumultuous, and Street Office. There are all kinds of problems also the [quality of] property management was at the lower level of the government ... These too poor, so I started to organize homeowners. people are very bureaucratic. When you initiate to establish a homeowners association, they On the other hand, those who did not contribute will first assume that you are serving “private- were seen as focusing only on “small” (private) interest” (sili 私利). “personal interests”, which carried clearly a negative connotation. Homeowner K commented that: Many homeowners did admit to us that their Not many people think about this matter of self- participation served both personal and public interests. governing. So their general behavior is “don’t Yet the normative expectation of benefiting the public care, don’t participate”. Even for those whose was so strong that they felt obliged to justify to personal interests have been infringed upon, they themselves as to why their motives were not purely just “open one eye and close one eye ... [It is] public. One homeowner (M) explained her “half- the “bad-nature” (liegenxing 劣根性) of Chinese public-beneficial” motive at length:

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It (my motive) might be said as half-public- neighborhood governance as constituted of nexuses of beneficial (ban gonyi半公益 ). It cannot be contracts or social ties. Both perspectives nevertheless counted as purely public-beneficial because I beg further questions: What shapes homeowners’ receive benefits from it (HOA organizing). Other interests, as well as their creation of a social network and people receive benefits from it too. But I have the accumulation of social capital? What determines the to contribute a lot, including surviving a lot of acceptability of certain institutional arrangements and gossip. For example, when our previous property practices in neighborhood governance? Our analysis management company left (was fired), there were provides initial answers to these questions. It shows lots of gossips, saying we had collected a lot of that neighborhood governance does not take place in money from the rents of the basement... a meaning vacuum—the role of the participants, their acts, and the created governance structures, as well Overall, normative disapprovals of the pursuits of as the neighborhood itself, may all be imbued with “private”-ness were expressed in a variety of forms, rich meanings that are sustained and negotiated in the such as “self-private (or selfish)” (zisi 自私), “private- process. These related meanings constitute people’s interest” (sili 私利), “private-heart (or with motives of interests, expectations, and their involvement in private interest)” (sixin 私心). Such an expectation was neighborhood governance. These findings contribute widely shared among the interviewed homeowners. to Ostrom’s (2005) Institutional Analysis and The limitation of this paper is that the RICF only has Development (IAD) framework by elaborating how project information for foundations for the year 2014. “attributes of community” (the meaning context of The statistical analyses can be improved by using Confucian ideas) may influence individuals’ collective panel data when it becomes available in the near future. governing effort (for their neighborhoods). Our study More data of RICF is scheduled to be released dating also answers the recent call for a decentered theory back to 2008. When panel data is available, time series of governance (Bevir, 2013), which views governing analysis will be possible and should be more powerful institutions as practices embedded in the cultural and in examining the research questions. historical contexts of the actors involved (Bevir & Rhodes, 2010). DISCUSSION For sure, there may be other potentially influential Our empirical investigation found some common ideas in our empirical setting (Cai & Sheng, 2013). distinctions and associations shared among the Beijing has been the political, economic, and cultural homeowners in their neighborhood governing efforts capital of China before and after the revolution for through HOAs. HOA organizers were normatively more than half a millennium and Confucianism was expected to serve with purely “public” motives and the core ruling ideology for roughly the same period. renounce “private” ones, whereas neighborhood However, one should still remain open to the potential management was not merely seen as a means for influence of other ideas. For example, the Communist improving living conditions, but a patriotic act of serving ideological emphasis on public service might have the country. These shared meanings corresponded reinforced our interviewees’ beliefs. Our interview to the ideal of junzi in Confucianism as well as its records also indicated, perhaps due to the economic guide to moral cultivation: virtuous individuals are liberalization in the past three decades, some influence expected to pursue public-righteousness instead of of the market logic: A few homeowners demanded private-interest, and they are to pursue the “ultimate better treatment from the developers with the reason goodness” by progressing from one’s personal self to that they were the latter’s “customers”. Professional one’s family and country and eventually to the world. identities, contemporary pop culture, as well as other philosophical-cultural-political ideas such as Daoism The findings suggest important implications for future and Buddhism may also influence the homeowners. research. Existing literature has largely conceived What is important is that some intersubjectively shared

122 • Chinese Public Administration Review Volume 9 Issue 2, December 2018 meanings are embedded in the homeowners’ narratives as a contemporary expression of some of the deepest and constitutive of their involvement in neighborhood streams of Confucian thought. Also, the findings affairs. Further research is warranted to investigate the might behoove the Chinese government to seek a roles of various culturally and historically embedded more dynamic equilibrium as an appropriate form ideas in shaping people’s behaviors and their accepted of societal stability than a static, carefully controlled practices in contemporary neighborhood governance. type of stability. Such a dynamic stability is more consistent with contemporary expressions of tradition Our findings also complement recent discussion on the which accept gradual change but remain resistant to impacts of participation on citizenship development radical deviations. It is more like the motion of a boat in China (Wang, Li & Cooper, 2015; Wang & Dai, on the sea rolling, pitching, and yawing with waves 2012) as well as specifically the argument that HOAs and currents without sinking, being capsized, or losing provide a good arena for citizenship development its direction. Any boat that might be able to maintain (Read, 2003). Thus far, the literature has been static stability in a rolling sea would soon sink. arguing from a capacity building perceptive that citizen participation is a good training ground for Finally, our analysis may contribute to the recent citizenship and democracy (De Tocqueville, 1840), proposal of developing endogenous citizenship and that a key to citizenship cultivation is education ethics for contemporary China (Heberer, 2009). (Cooper, 1991; 2011; Stivers, 2001). One important It demonstrates how core Confucian ideas remain remaining question is that whether the participants deeply ingrained in people’s conceptions, influencing also see that what they are doing embodies the values their attitudes and behaviors in situations they of democracy and modern rights-based citizenship. consider “public”. It also echoes recent empirical This concern is similar to the debate about whether research on what constitutes “public” and what values the “rightful resistance” activities in China (O’Brien are desired in public affairs (Jørgensen & Rutgers, & Li, 2006) represent “growing rights consciousness 2015). Policy makers and public managers should or a rules consciousness that has existed for centuries” consider if the assumptions underlying their policies (O’Brien, 2013, 1059; Perry, 2008; Zhu, 2011). From and expectations are consistent (enough) with the our perspective, efforts in neighborhood governing, to meaning-nexus shared by relevant policy actors some, may simply be about serving the instrumental and members of the wider society. Chinese people purposes of improving their own living conditions involved in civic engagement movements might also and/or the market price of their apartments (which consider explaining their objectives and justifications may not be very different from some corporate for actions in terms of certain strains of Confucian board members deliberating for company profits). thought instead of necessarily referring to ideas rooted But interestingly, our results showed that at least in Western political traditions. in Beijing, or perhaps other areas receiving strong influence from Confucianism, some people did share CONCLUSION similar understanding about neighborhood governance and consider their corresponding efforts as carrying Until recently, economic development had been significant implications for the country. While more dominating the developmental agenda in China empirical research is needed to confirm these initial since Deng Xiaoping’s Reform and Opening Up findings, relevant legislators and government agencies Policy. The rapid process of development has caused should probably take these potential associations into devastating disruption to China’s indigenous cultures consideration. Peoples’ self-governance impulses, and the fabric of many existing communities. The such as those emerging from the HOA movement, possibility of establishing HOAs and allowing local should not be perceived as necessarily a result of people to govern their neigborhoods presents an foreign influences; roots of these impulses may be encouraging opportunity to rectify such a trend. found in ancient Chinese traditions and understood However, self-organizing for governance is difficult,

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APPENDIX Table. Interview Protocol

Introduction • Introduction of the research team and individual interviewers • Explain purposes of the study • State the proposed duration of discussion • Explain confidentiality of the collected information • Obtain consent Neighborhood characteristics • Neighborhood size • Common age group • Housing price Organizational characteristics of HOAs • Founding date • Under what circumstances • Size of participants Experience of participation • When did you begin to participate in organizing HOAs? What motivated you to do that? • Can you share with us your story of participation in HOAs? Do you have a goal in your participation in HOA? • What do you think of your participation in HOAs? What have you obtained in this process? Are there any changes to your mindset and skills? Can you talk more about these changes? • How often do board members have a meeting? What do you usually discuss? • Can you list the organizations that you deal with frequently on neighborhood affairs?

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Wai-Hang Yee is an assistant professor in the Department of Politics and Public Administration, The University of Hong Kong. Email: [email protected]

Weijie Wang is an assistant professor in the Harry S. Truman School of Public Affairs, University of Missouri. Email: [email protected]

Terry L. Cooper is the Maria B. Crutcher Professor in Citizenship and Democratic Values in the Sol Price School of Public Policy, University of Southern California. Email: [email protected]

Yee, Wang, & Cooper • 127 Chinese Public Administration CPAR Review Volume 9 Issue 2, December 2018

The Emergence and Divergence in Performance: Management Systems in California State Government Richard F. Callahan University of San Francisco, USA An understudied aspect of performance management systems is how performance management systems emerge in public agencies. This research focuses on the emergence of performance management systems, studying two cases with divergent outcomes in the State of California. The first case study is about the Performance Management Council, which included the voluntary participation of more than 20 California state agencies, departments, and divisions. The second case study is about the Department of Toxic Substances Control within the California Environmental Protection Agency. These cases, which impacted 35 million residents in a state with a $200 billion annual budget, potentially offer findings valuable to nations and to large sub-national units of government such as large states, districts, and provinces. This research offers three contributions to public sector performance management research literature. First, it addresses a gap in the understanding of how performance management systems emerge through dialogue and learning forums. Second, the research extends the study of performance management to the policy arenas of environmental protection, water resources, and other policy domains typically not researched in performance management. Third, the research connects performance management to the research on the reform of public agencies, diffusion of practices, and organizational change.

Keywords: performance management, reform of public agencies, state government, learning forums, public management

INTRODUCTION

n understudied aspect of performance movement (Hood, 1991). management systems is how they emerge. The Atwo case studies presented in this paper explore Selecting California state government as the subject the emergence of performance management systems in of the case studies offers two advantages for research state government in California, United States. Research on public systems. First, the government officials were on how performance management systems develop accessible, which was not possible at the national level. addresses three significant performance management Second, the scope of California’s state budget (over $200 questions: (1) why performance management systems billion in fiscal year 2019) and the impact of serving are utilized (de Lancer and Holzer, 2001); (2) can over 35 million residents facilitate comparisons not only public agencies be designed to succeed or perform with other state-level governments, but also with most effectively (Moe, 1990b); and (3) how do public nations. The size and diversity of California relates to agencies reform (Yang, 2011) or re-invent (Osborne nations such as China whose large public agencies place and Gaebler, 1992). These two cases provide findings an “emphasis on performance regimes” (Holzer and Lu, on the questions of utilization, success, and reform 2016; 2). This research on performance management, themes in performance management, which are linked for example, can suggest possible research avenues for to the highly influential New Public Management how China can “use diverse measures to increase the

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to the author at [email protected]. View this article at cpar.net

128 • Chinese Public Administration Review Volume 9 Issue 2, December 2018 performance of its public officials and its public agencies The first section of the paper develops the underlying while also meeting political demands and obligations” logic of the research, outlining the inherent (Mingus and Jing, 2016; 17). complexities of researching public organizations and explaining case study research as a methodology Typically, research on performance management begins that provides analytical leverage to explain how with evaluating existing performance management performance management systems emerge in public systems (Gerrish, 2016; Moynihan, 2013; Sohn and Bin agencies. The second section develops the findings Bae, 2018) that depend on routines for using information from the two cases. This section provides descriptive that is generated (Moynihan, 2008; 5). Current research explanations of how performance management on this topic examines responses from surveys of local systems emerge in the public sector. The third section government managers (Garnett, Marlowe, and Pandey, discusses the case findings using the Moynihan model 2008), of school district managers (Meier and O’Toole, (2008), which indicates the key features that drive 2002), and a combination of local and state government learning forums for performance management, as well managers (de Lancer and Holzer, 2001). as their connection to the reform of public agencies. This section also considers the limitations of the A precursor question to research is how performance research and suggestions for future research. management systems emerge from the complex realities and competing demands of public organizations. This EMERGENCE OF PERFORMANCE addresses the need to explain the process by which the MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS utilization of performance management systems occurs, as identified by de Lancer and Holzer (2001; 694). The The emergence of performance management research question of this paper is how do performance systems typically occurs in an intrinsically complex management systems emerge in the context of public environment with a wide range of variables (Meier sector organizations? More specifically, the research and O’Toole, 2015b). Seminal findings show that an question considers if the specific mechanisms found “adaptation of systems is more heavily influenced by by Moynihan (2008; 167) of iterative dialogue and rational/technical factors and implementation by more learning forums as discussions between public managers political/ cultural factors” (de Lancer and Holzer, lead to the emergence of performance management 2001; 701-702). A consistent finding over several systems? This research on the dynamics of developing decades of research is that utilization is influenced by performance management systems is designed to many factors, including, but not limited to, political advance understanding of how governance processes support, goal-oriented culture, and citizen support design reform initiatives, as well as inform research (Moynihan and Pandey, 2010; 862). on the use of performance information (Moynihan and Pandey, 2010; 862). It is not surprising that adaptation and utilization of performance management in public agencies remains The first case study illustrates the development of a research puzzle. Longstanding organizational an interagency working group of over 20 California researcher James March (2011) wrote that state departments that becomes the Performance organizations are inherently complex and the work Management Council. The second case covers the of sorting through their experiences is consistently evolution of a performance management system within ambiguous. Moynihan, a decades long leader in the a single agency, the Department of Toxic Substances field, described the complexity of researching the Control within the California Environmental Protection relationship between public sector organizations and Agency. The case studies offer an opportunity to their performance as a “messy affair,” where the compare the emergence of performance management implementations of reforms do not proceed as planned systems between a single agency and across agencies. and the results do not provide the predicted benefits (2008; 4). The case studies researched in this paper

Callahan • 129 The Emergence and Divergence in Performance illustrate the internal dynamics of the messy affair of federal agencies, with the intensive involvement of that is public agency reform through performance the Office of the Vice President (Callahan, Archibald, management and the challenges of delivering the Milward, and Sterner, 2012; DeSeve, 2011). Research benefits of improved measurements. on performance management also extends through three US presidential administrations with the Clinton Fernandez and Rainey’s (2006) research drew on and Gore Government Performance and Results Act a comprehensive review of organizational change of 1993, the subsequent G.W. Bush administration’s literature and found over one million citations as Program Assessment Rating Tool (Moynihan and of a 1995 study. Their exhaustive review of public Laventu, 2012), and the Obama administration’s sector research concluded that eight significant factors performance at mid-point in the first term (Kamensky, “contribut[e] to the successful implementation of 2011). Similarly, well-developed research at the state change—or mak[e] implementation smoother—by and local levels in job training occurs in the context adding to the effects of the other factors” (Fernandez of top-down federal mandates (Heinrich, 2007). and Rainey, 2006; 169). Their overview stated that Research has also included the study of top-down organizational change is a non-linear process, with leadership (Van Wart, 2011; Wright, Moynihan and each factor interacting with other factors throughout Pandey, 2012). the process (Fernandez and Rainey, 2006; 173). From this perspective, their findings on public sector Research has considered a range of variables and organizational change suggest that the research models to explain success, failure, or ambiguous literature highlights the importance of recognizing results of performance management from local to the complexity of the process of change and reform in international levels (Yang, 2011). There is a wide public agencies. In both California cases, performance range of international examples of performance management systems were closely tied to organizational management systems not limited to Western and change, including structural and cultural change in Commonwealth democracies, for example, Liu and the Department of Toxic Substances Control, and the Li’s (2016) work on the diffusion of performance formation of the Performance Management Council management practices across provinces in China as an organizational network structure. (Liu and Li, 2016), Sohn and Bae’s (2018) research on budgeting in Korea (Sohn and Bin Bae, 2018), Further complicating the research in public sector Brusca and Montesinos’ (2016) comparison of local performance are the distinct variables for each government across multiple countries, and Moynihan level and location of government, precluding easy and Beazley’s (2016) World Bank comparisons across generalizations (Raadschelders, 2011; de Lancer, seven nations. 2012). Additionally, the complexity of the performance management movement derives from the tension In the United States, performance management between efficiency and the interaction with values in a research has studied federal (Moynihan and Laventu, democracy (Radin, 2006; Kirlin, 1996). 2012), state (Moynihan, 2008; Aristigueta and Zarook, 2011; Yang and VanLandingham, 2012), and The current focus of performance management local levels of government (Garnett, Marlowe and research is on systems that were imposed from the top Pandey, 2008), as well as school districts (Rutherford, down, for example, the Federal PART in the United 2014). Research includes a shift from the study of States (Moynihan, 2013) and KPART in Korea (Sohn external factors to the study of managers’ internal and Bin Bae, 2018), both of which were studies of cognitive processes (Olsen, 2015) and motivation to existing and not emerging performance management use performance information (Moynihan and Pandey, systems. The American Recovery and Reinvestment 2010). In a comprehensive overview, Gerrish’s (2016) Act spurred performance management systems meta-analysis of performance management research developed effectively from the top down across a range found a total of 49 in-depth studies of performance

130 • Chinese Public Administration Review Volume 9 Issue 2, December 2018 management systems published before 2014. potential to draw on a well-developed research stream on public agency organizational reform. At the local Performance management is the “most widespread level, Reinventing Government (Osborne and Gaebler, governmental reform” in recent decades, and this trend 1992) is a treatise on reform of public agencies driven is expected to continue in the future (Moynihan and by performance management. The case studies in this Pandey, 2010; 849). The connection between reform article address the genesis of the reform detailed by and performance management is at the nexus of Osborn and Gaebler and subsequent scholarship by increasing accountability efforts among governments looking at how performance management systems worldwide (Yang, 2011; 149). The question of how emerge. The wide range of research on performance performance management systems emerge has become management can be tapped to develop a more robust central to the reform of public agencies. Likewise, the understanding of challenges to performance reform. response to the big question of why public managers use performance management data (Moynihan and Researching the emergence of performance Pandey, 2010; 850) requires a deeper understanding management systems also relates to policy diffusion. of the “new antecedents of performance management In the development of performance management use” (862). systems, Liu and Li (2016) identified the sharing of knowledge across different jurisdictions as a Varied research on organizational change consistently significant research question gleaned from their notes that public agency reform does not easily occur. thoughtful research on the diffusion of performance Longitudinal research across a range of US president- management knowledge across provinces in China initiated reform concluded that the challenges of (630). The exploratory research presented in this sustaining focus and policy priorities were consistent paper on the emergence of performance management through major federal reorganizational efforts in the systems fits conceptually with the research on policy 20th century, with the problems of attention and policy diffusion that considers how ideas and best practices tradeoffs limiting change (March and Olsen, 1983). spread in the public sector. The case study on the Another longitudinal study across federal reform Performance Management Council illustrates the initiatives found a predictable regularity in reform mechanisms which promote policy diffusion in a large efforts – described as “the tides of reform” – across state government. four different types of federal organizational redesigns occurring over decades (Light, 1997). Overall, there Comparison of each of the two California case studies is a need to improve the understanding of institutional tests a model that describes the role of iterative design and public management to move beyond the dialogue in learning forums in developing performance “uncritical and universal adoption of poorly grounded management systems (Moynihan, 2008). Moynihan’s recipes for institutional design” (Hood and Peters, research found these forums were a central feature 2004; 278). for developing performance measures (2008; 95). On this topic, his extensive research (2008; 184- Fundamentally, performance management is about 190) found the importance of following features for the effectiveness of a public agency. It intrinsically systems of performance measures to develop within addresses Terry Moe’s (1990b) question of whether an organization: public agencies are designed to succeed, which he • Top-down management emerges from the centers of described as the politics of structural choice. Moe power in the legislative and executive branches originally asked this question within the context of • Dependence on support from a finance department the design of new federal agencies, but it can also be • Highly valued by elected officials for symbolism asked at other levels of government (Callahan, 2007). • Advanced by public service career professionals Researching how public agencies begin the process of • Participants are equal utilizing performance management systems offers the • Develops from an implicit theory that organizational

Callahan • 131 The Emergence and Divergence in Performance learning is possible The two selected cases on California performance • Dialogue shapes culture in everyday interactions management move beyond the typical cluster of policy • Depends on other organizational forces areas of education, police, and job training to include Moynihan’s (2008; 206-7) findings suggest the policy arenas in environmental protection in one case, importance of researching how occasions develop to and numerous topics such as water resources, prisons, create learning forums for conversations, sharing of and emergency response in the other case. best practices, and storytelling, and invite additional research in realistic settings. The research in this The selected cases are “richly textured” and derive paper develops an in-depth exploration of discussions from field research. Heinrich, Hill and Lynn (2004; in actual learning forums, potentially addressing a 13) found case studies to be more appropriate than gap in understanding the emergence of performance other research methods on governance that includes management systems – understanding how dialogue performance management given that they have the transitions to performance management systems. potential to identify relevant and intervening variables (George and Bennett, 2005; 20-21) and explore the Case Study Methodology contextual variables (O’Toole and Meier, 2015). Case The two case studies emerged from the research study research can build theory through finding cases methods of observations, interviews, and documents that offer access to significant processes that are not as conducted in other case studies of performance fully explained by existing theory (Eisenhardt and management systems serving large populations Graebner, 2007) and ask new questions (George and such as research on Chinese provinces (Liu and Li, Bennett; 2). However, the selection of cases should 2016; 639). The author conducted the research by be on significant issues of national importance (Yin, (1) observing participants in both case studies;(2) 2009; 185). The selected cases affect the lives of 35 interviewing key participants to understand their million residents within a state budget of over $200 narrative on emergence; and (3) reviewing key official billion. These two California cases offer insights at documents generated in both cases. The complexity the large-scale state level, comparable to the scale and and variance across the public sector (Raadschelders, scope of many nations. 2011) suggests the utility of case studies that explore the nuances embedded throughout the range of Case study research can begin to address the limits government units, as well as across different functions of self-reported surveys relied on by a considerable and responsibilities. The in-depth case study approach number of performance management journal has improved understanding of the mechanisms and articles. For example, Phase IV of the National practices that explain how cooperation emerges across Administrative Studies Project, a nationwide survey varied nations and different types of common-pool of local government managers in the United States environmental resources (Ostrom, 1990). is the foundation of research by Wright, Moynihan, and Pandey, (2012); Moynihan and Pandey (2010); The case study methodology is favored as an approach and previously Garnett, Marlowe, and Pandey (2008). seeking to explain the “how” of an issue (Yin, 2009; Findings based on self-reported surveys can have 9). A weakness of public-sector research has been significant limits due to two features noted by several described as the “street lamp effect” of looking only researchers. The first limitation is an upward positive where the light is available, that is, when research bias in the responses (Gerrish, 2016; Moynihan studies only topics with available data sets (Hill and and Pandey, 2010; 859), and the second limitation Lynn 2005; 188). Along these lines, Gerrish (2016; is common source bias (Gerrish, 2016; Meier and 51) finds in 49 published, in-depth studies of public- O’Toole, 2013b). sector performance management research a cluster of topics with 19 education articles, 10 police articles, Addressing the limits of self-report, this case study nine job training articles, and only five other topics. research draws on the observations of the author. The

132 • Chinese Public Administration Review Volume 9 Issue 2, December 2018

Table 1. Interviews

Name Position Perspective Initiator of Performance Management Drown, Stuart Director, Little Hoover Commission Council Director, Department of Toxic Substances Initiator of Department of Toxic Movassaghi, Maziar Control, State of California, Environmental Substances Control performance Protection Agency (CAL EPA) management Aligning financial resources with Budget director, Department of Toxic Robertson, Aaron performance measures in Department of Substances Control, CAL EPA Toxic Substances Control Development of Performance Stern, Eric Staff assistant, Little Hoover Commission Management Council Participants in Performance Management Foster, Tamar Staff assistant, Little Hoover Commission Council Executive staff, Parks and Recreation Department, State of California and Comparisons across state agencies for Verardo, Denzil consultant, Department of Toxic performance management systems Substances Control

Sources: Richard Callahan use of observations and document reviews address the (2008; 48 and 99). The cases in this research paper importance of finding sources outside of self-reporting address a longstanding need identified by de Lancer and (Meier and O’Toole, 2013a). Also, interviews Holzer (2001; 694) to study the process of utilization with multiple participants can surface contrasting of performance management systems. The case study perspectives on the same performance management method facilitates exploration of the complexity of the systems. The in-depth case study can address “an processes of utilization across varied policy arenas in overly instrumental view” that underestimates the California. challenges of shaping organizational culture and connecting employees to organizational mission THE CALIFORNIA STATE GOVERNMENT (Wright et al., 2012; 211). The in-depth interviews in CASE FINDINGS the selected cases provide an opportunity to understand the narrative (Borins, 2005) from the inside out with The case selections were based on access to a access to actionable knowledge and intentional design performance management system in the shared that cannot be accessed in data-set research (Ospina context of California state government, in a concurrent and Dodge, 2005). time frame, and with access to the development from the start. The two case studies that have been There is compelling precedent for case study research identified are (1) the State of California Little of performance management at the state level with Hoover Commission, Performance Management comparative study of the performance management Council; (2) the State of California, Environmental systems of different states (Moynihan, 2008; Protection Agency, Department of Toxic Substances Aristigueta and Zarook, 2011), as well as research Control. The cases were chosen to use documents, precedent in a case study of the complexity of observations, and interviews of key participants measuring the performance of outsourcing oversight to describe the organizational features correlated (Yang and VanLandingham, 2012). The key features with the development of performance management of performance management systems found by discussions. Moynihan developed from a range of case studies

Callahan • 133 The Emergence and Divergence in Performance

Table 2. Significant Features of Each Case

Performance Management Council: Department of Toxic Substances Control: Case Study One Case Study Two Maziar Movassaghi, director, Robertson, Stuart Drown, executive director, Eric Aaron, budget officer, Department of Toxic Participants Interviewed Stern, and Tamar Foster, staff, Little Substances Control Hoover Commission Denzil Verardo, consultant Invitation of national expert John Invitation of experts to form a five-member Kamensky to address California state Initiating Event department advisory board executives Department and division directors from Department director, senior staff and Participants over 20 state departments and divisions volunteer advisory board Across state agencies with voluntary Departmental managers presenting to Interaction patterns participation and voluntary presentations experts on advisory board Water resources, public health, finance, Remediation of existing toxic waste sites Policy Arenas human resources, and other throughout California Bi-monthly meetings across 20 or more Departmental meetings and the convening of Discussion Arenas departments in different state agencies advisory board meetings

Sources: Richard Callahan In both cases, the author has been an observer and points in time from 2010 to 2012 to add a longitudinal participant for one year or longer. The research aspect needed to address self-reporting bias (Meier was developed from the observations as a member and O’Toole, 2013a; Eisenhardt and Graeber, 2007). of the Advisory Board of the Department of Toxic All the interviews were conducted in Sacramento, Substances Control initial meetings and subsequent California. The interviewees included the following meetings from 2008 to 2010. For the Performance individuals listed in the table below, with their official Management Council, the author participated in the position at the time of their participation in the initial discussions starting in 2008 and suggested performance management projects. established expert in performance management John Kamensky be invited to speak to California The interviews were conducted through open-ended government state executives in a meeting hosted by questions. The intent was to avoid introducing bias into Executive Director Stuart Drown of the state’s Little the responses by the choice of questions or suggesting Hoover Commission. The author attended meetings the importance or priorities of issues via the sequence and observed the proceeding on a regular basis of questions. The analysis initially overviewed each through 2013. As an academic, the author was an response to construct a timeline and note repeated invited participant in both cases and had easy access themes. Next, the responses were compared for shared to other participants and to key decision-makers. themes or practices across the interviews. The themes and practices suggested in the interviews were then In addition to several years of observations, the cases connected with observations and source documents to also developed from interviews with principals in explore relationships and linkages. The analysis also each case study. The interviewees had been present at included follow-up with documents suggested in the the start of the performance management initiatives in interviews. each case. Both top leadership and staff were selected for interviews to get varied perspectives on each case In addition to the observations of several years, study. The interviews were conducted at different the research relied on primary source documents

134 • Chinese Public Administration Review Volume 9 Issue 2, December 2018 that had been published, as well as presentations at drew upon local expertise to identify a national leader public meetings, including meeting agendas, staff in performance management. These discussions presentations, and published reports cited in the led to a consensus on inviting national performance reference section. An overview of the cases is provided management expert John Kamensky to fly in below in Table 2. from Washington DC to speak in Sacramento. An experienced leader at the US General Accounting Case Study One: Performance Management Office, Kamensky traveled in the fall 2009 to speak Council, State of California with state officials. Kamensky spoke at a voluntary In the first case study, a narrative emerges on the meeting attended by over 40 state executives from sustainability of performance management. A agency secretary offices and department directors. Performance Management Council started in 2009 The Little Hoover Commission convened a three- across California state agencies out of the long- hour discussion, featuring both a presentation by standing focus of the State of California’s Little Kamensky on key practices, as well as a discussion Hoover Commission on improving the performance by the state executives on their experiences. A of organizations within state government. Located in significant feature of the meeting was the department the state capital City of Sacramento, the Commission’s and agency representatives sharing experiences on staff researched and addressed deficiencies and performance management with others outside of their opportunities in state government operations through organizational jurisdiction. This type of discussion a process that included study, report writing, and addressed the problem of organizational silos that public hearings, and lead to recommendations. had been identified in a Little Hoover Commission Starting in 2008, in the final chapter of their published Report in the late 1990s as a significant barrier to study of state information technology systems, the improved performance throughout state government. commission’s staff began exploring performance The need to enhance the development of interpersonal management in California state government (Stern, and inter-organizational networks became a driver for 2010). In the study of the Office of the Chief developing a four-year California Leadership Institute Information Officer (OCIO), the Little Hoover (1998 to 2002) that trained state executives. Commission’s staff uncovered that the challenge in information technology extended beyond collecting As a follow-up to the information technology report data. The report concluded that the state had a need for and the initial meeting with Kamensky, the Little developing ways for information to drive performance Hoover Commission’s executive director and staff management (Drown, 2011). The implementation of convened a meeting of state managers and executives the report’s recommendation became the basis for who were interested and experienced in performance the Commission staff efforts to form a statewide management systems. Out of this initial series of Performance Management Council (Foster, 2012). meetings, an ongoing series of meetings developed. The Director of the Little Hoover Commission A regular meeting drew from across approximately Stuart Drown and lead staff members Eric Stern and 25 state government departments and agencies Tamar Foster developed four separate mechanisms “to infuse and sustain a performance management to facilitate the Performance Management Council culture throughout state government” (Performance to advance the practice of performance management Management Council, 2010a; 4). Every six to eight across California state government agencies. weeks, voluntary participants interested in meeting discussed their experience in developing, designing, Convening performance management discussion and implementing performance management systems. forums Typically, 12 to 20 state managers or executives The first mechanism for the emergence of the would attend, along with Little Hoover Commission Performance Management Council was to convene staff, and one or two university faculty. The Little with a nationally recognized expert. Initially, Drown Hoover Commission staff would develop the agenda,

Callahan • 135 The Emergence and Divergence in Performance find a workable date for the largest possible number facilitate conversations through participants’ voluntary of potential participants, and chair the meeting. The presentations at each meeting of their department, initial meeting had 20 participants develop their board, or agency’s performance management system. process for moving forward as a group. In the course The presentations deliberately included both large of a year, the group named itself the Performance agencies and smaller departments and boards. The Management Council. presentations covered a wide range of policy arenas including, but not limited to, water resources, human Three intended outcomes drove the strategy of the Little resources, budgeting, transportation, and public Hoover Commission staff for convening the meetings. health. In addition, updates on specific performance The first and most obvious was to provide a safe improvement initiatives were provided by staff forum for state executives to share their experiences from the legislature and the governor’s office. The and questions on performance management, learning meetings became learning forums to hear what other not only from the national speaker, but also from the departments were doing, as well as different strategies experiences of other executives in California state for getting started and working through problems. The government. A second, drawing on the Little Hoover presentations became a way to get executives more Commission Executive Director Stuart Drown’s involved in the Performance Management Council, career as a journalist, was “to create a record, to to meet and learn from other state executives, and get people to say that this was important and an to engage in discussions with legislative staff and alternative narrative to the idea that government the governor’s office staff with whom they were not workers are not committed to making things better typically connected. At the end of each presentation, and not committed to outcomes” (Drown, 2011). A feedback forms were distributed to all those in third significant outcome was to create a forum that attendance. The responses typically confirmed the encouraged connections between executives in state value of each presentation, and the Little Hoover government. As noted by one of the two key staff, a Commission staff sent out summaries of the feedback goal was to facilitate the “types of conversations that responses to the individual presenters (Foster, 2012). would be beneficial to encourage people and increase understanding, so that people wouldn’t feel alone” Performance management survey (Foster, 2012). A third strategic mechanism that facilitated the emergence of the Performance Management Council Notably, the strategy did not call for a formal structure was a survey on performance-management activity in or authorization. Rather, the process continued with California state government. In March 2010, a sub- voluntary meetings with the participants’ discussion committee of the Council administered a survey to 218 of their performance management experience. As separate divisions, departments, boards, commissions, might be expected from professionals engaged in and agencies on California state government performance management, early in the process the (Performance Management Council, 2010b). Equally members discussed what should be expected metrics important, the Council sub-committee engaged for the Performance Management Council. As a interested its members and reached out nationally group, the participants drafted and circulated a charter for advice from the US Government Accountability document to develop written consensus on the how Office when developing the survey. The survey had the Council would meet and the expectations for 71 respondents. The Performance Management performance. Council members discussed the survey results at a meeting and published a report on the survey in Presentations at the performance management September 2010. The report presented responses on council 30 different questions, offering a nuanced snapshot A second strategic mechanism for the emergence of performance management systems in California of the Performance Management Council was to state government. The report noted the link in the

136 • Chinese Public Administration Review Volume 9 Issue 2, December 2018 use of performance management with strategic inclusion of seven case studies of performance planning. The highest number of respondents noted management systems in state government, the connection of performance management systems systematically shared the varied experiences of state with the department’s vision or mission (Performance executives. Models of successful implementation of Management Council, 2010b; 31). performance management systems became accessible across state government. The process of outreach and The survey advanced two significant features of the circulating the report resulted in a designed network Performance Management Council. First, consistent that could leverage current experiences into new with the performance management emphasis of efforts (Performance Management Council, 2010b; the Council members, the survey itself became 31). a measurable outcome to advance performance management in state government. A second key Sustainability aspect of the survey was “to keep people engaged and The mechanisms discussed above facilitated the contributing” (Foster, 2012). emergence of the Performance Management Council in less than two years. The formation of the Council Advisory report along with the continued interest in meetings across A fourth strategic mechanism for the emergence of the agencies was not a given. There was no authorizing Performance Management Council was publishing an legislation or governor’s office requirement. In advisory report entitled What Gets Measured Gets contrast, a former key staff member stated, “I was Done (2010a). Over the course of meeting for over always pleasantly surprised when people showed up a year, Council members produced a white paper for the meetings” (Foster, 2012). One participant noted on performance management in California state that the “conversations of the people accounted for the government. Through a process of a subcommittee ability to learn from each other. I have called on folks drafting, circulating, and revising a report, the full in other agencies and looked at their performance Performance Management Council generated an management work, and they have called me and agreed upon snapshot of the status of performance looked at our work” (Robertson, 2012). management in state government. The report also included a set of recommendations for increasing When faced with budget cutbacks and expanding the utilization of performance management systems. workload, the Little Hoover Commission suggested a The director’s transmittal letter that accompanied the change for the Performance Management Council. In release of the report to state agencies and departments February 2012, the staff proposed that the leadership noted that: shift to a model of annual rotating co-chairs from For the first time, information has been two state departments. The co-chairs suggested by collected about specific strategies that state the Little Hoover Commission staff and approved by departments and agencies employ to improve the full Council membership were experienced state program outcomes by tracking performance data government managers with advanced performance to inform budget and management decisions. This management systems in each of their departments. In report provides a street-level status report on addition, each had a leadership role in the Performance these activities and concludes with a framework Management Council committee that did the survey to better leverage, unify and grow these efforts of state agencies and the committee that wrote the across state government. (Drown, 2010; 1) advisory report. Their first step as co-chairs was to engage the membership in revisiting the Council’s This report was a tangible record of organizational charter and ask for suggestions and consent. learning through network design. Organizational learning occurred across varied state agencies and Over 20 state executives from the typical range departments. The drafting of the report, with the of departments attended the initial meeting after

Callahan • 137 The Emergence and Divergence in Performance the transition in leadership on April 24, 2012. The Conflicted organizational culture meeting agenda expanded to include presentations and Despite Movassaghi and Verado’s past professional discussions with two additional institutional players success in performance management, features of the in performance management, and for the first time, organizational culture challenged the emergence of the Performance Management Council met with an a performance management system. Environmental executive from the California Department of Finance. scientists and engineers became deeply concerned that Additionally, the Council met with a lead staff performance management systems would diminish member from both the Assembly Budget Committee their professional roles. In addition, the director and the Senate Governance and Finance Committee found that managers feared that career-threatening (Performance Management Council, 2012). The repercussions would result from a failure to achieve Council members committed to meeting every four to goals (Movassaghi, 2012). They perceived that the six weeks into the future and reviewing an updated performance management system would limit their charter. career moves due to a negative report on a metric. In contrast, at the top of the department, the executive Case Study Two: The Department of Toxic team involved in the selection of measures though Substances Control, State of California performance management advanced the values of In 2008 Maziar Movassaghi, the interim director of the transparency and accountability while protecting the of the California Environmental Protection Agency’s health of Californians (Verardo, 2011; Robertson, Department of Toxic Substances Control, drew on his 2012). Addressing this fear through individual experience in developing performance management conversations was difficult because of the absence of systems for the City of Oakland. One of his primary annual performance reviews with managers, with less assets for developing performance management than one in five conducting an annual review in 2009 systems for Dthe Department was long-time state (Robertson, 2012). employee Denzil Verardo. Verardo had won awards for his work in the design of performance management Selecting metrics systems for the Department of Parks and Recreation Movassaghi saw data-rich information but poor and led a section of the California Performance organizational utilization of the data. In response, Review initiated by the previous governor (Verardo, he developed a process to reconcile day-to-day 2011a). In addition, he brought extensive experience operations with a strategic plan. The initial approach in training staff on how to develop outcome and output in 2008 was to create a system by asking staff to measures. identify performance metrics. However, this bottom- up approach failed to generate the types of metrics Pressures for change needed for an effective performance management The need for a performance management system system. The lack of performance management was generated by several external pressures. The training led the technical staff to suggest measures expansion of mandates by the legislature extended that were very scientific or engineering focused. environmental safety beyond site regulation and Moreover, the existing tracking system created a remediation. A second pressure included outdated and mindset that did not facilitate reframing measures insufficient revenue streams. Movassaghi was also from outputs to outcomes. For example, the workload concerned with spending down a $100 million bond for managing large locations with multiple sites, such issue for cleaning up a toxic waste. The governor’s as former military bases, were difficult to compare office and California State Legislature would be with workloads of small sites such as dry cleaners looking to the department to document the progress of (Movassaghi, 2012). The challenge was to select a few clean-up efforts (Movassaghi, 2012). key measures for a performance-management system to use data to inform decision-making processes (Robertson, 2012).

138 • Chinese Public Administration Review Volume 9 Issue 2, December 2018

Table 2. Descriptive Statistics of the Variables in the Study Year 2006

N Min Max Mean SD Consolidation rate at primary schools (%) 107 60.30 110.40 93.22 8.70 Enrollment rate of junior secondary school- 263 74.50 102.20 98.36 3.01 age population (%) Enrollment rate of graduates of junior second- 263 22.40 100.00 66.80 19.11 ary schools to high school (%) State education budget (ten thousand yuan) 263 1155 49568 12404 8166.86 Funding by community groups and individual 263 0 6303 1179.99 1214.65 citizens (ten thousand yuan) Social donations and fund-raising (ten thou- 263 0 1201 116.55 201.89 sand yuan) Share of social donations in total educational 263 0 0.54 0.11 0.11 expenditure (%) GDP (ten thousand yuan) 261 45145 5182000 711050 638468.03 Per capita GDP (yuan) 261 1006 70627 12104 10585.46 Population density (people/ sq km) 259 15 26227 752.74 2534.34 Local fiscal revenue (ten thousand yuan) 236 2139 159904 23804 27423.79 Local fiscal expenditure (ten thousand yuan) 236 19090 202654 56604 28431.94 Fiscal revenue per capita (yuan) 234 91 8819.32 515.02 789.89 Fiscal expenditure per capita (yuan) 234 320 15441.12 1200.30 1256.75

Sources: Author’s compilation

Eventually, the selection of performance measurement five-member Performance Review Board (PRB). The metrics shifted from the initial bottom-up approach PRB had professionals from outside the department, to a top-down approach. The director, with 10 to including a representative from the Sierra Club, a 12 top staff, began a process of suggesting metrics, private-sector representative, a representative from the leading to an initial pilot project in northern California State Department of Conservation, a legislative staff (Movassaghi, 2012). Movassaghi sought to develop member, and an academic member (the author). The an “Executive Dashboard” of field-driven measures. meetings of the panel provided Department of Toxic He explicitly considered the tradeoff between the Substances Control executives and senior managers expense of collection of the data against the value of with the opportunity to present their work. An the data collected in six categories of outcomes: (1) important goal was for presenters to clearly articulate restoring communities; (2) safeguarding communities; the issues, explain data, and offer conclusions. The (3) protecting future generations; (4) accountability presentations became opportunities for organizational and transparency; (5) fiscal responsibility; and (6) learning among staff through accompanying questions organizational excellence. and feedback from the five-member panel.

Performance review board The intent of the PRB quarterly meetings was to To increase the number of conversations between provide staff advice and questions from experts performance managers, Movassaghi developed a new on the panel. Typically, staff prepared in-depth forum for project managers to present their work. In presentations, handling any questions from the PRB. 2009, he created a new board with the appointment of a Outside the meetings, a different perception emerged.

Callahan • 139 The Emergence and Divergence in Performance

Table 3. Application of the Moynihan Model

Performance Department of Moynihan Model Management Toxic Substances Council Control Top-down management emerges from the centers of power in the legislative No No and executive branches Dependence on support from a finance department No No Highly valued by elected officials for symbolism No No Advanced by public service career professionals Yes Yes Participants are equal Yes No Develops from an implicit theory that organizational learning is possible Yes Yes Dialogue shapes culture in everyday interactions Yes Yes Depends on other organizational forces Yes Yes

Sources: Richard Callahan The staff regarded the PRB as an oversight board, leadership shifted the department staff to a focus whose questions were driven by the director rather on green chemistry. The shift in resources, coupled than an independent expert source of questions with personnel cutbacks, lead to staff pulling away and discussions (Movassaghi, 2012). Notably, the from performance management efforts. By 2011, the PRB did provide a model for “conversations at the architects of the performance management system and executive staff level on performance management” its implementation had moved to different agencies (Robertson, 2012). The model for questioning staff by or into retirement. Subsequently, the Performance the members of the PRB was adapted in the executive- Review Board no longer met. staff meetings, which were held every two weeks. In these meeting, the executive staff asked questions of DISCUSSION each other on outcome measures. Each executive-staff meeting discussed one of four different aspects of the Moynihan Model performance measurement system. The selected cases add texture to Moynihan’s (2008) concepts of learning forums and iterative dialogue as Sustainability necessary components for advancing performance The difficulty of sustaining a performance management management. The findings both contrast and align system in the Department of Toxic Substances Control with Moynihan’s (2008; 184-190) discussion of extended beyond the inherent difficulties of measuring key features driving learning forums. Table 3 below government performance in complex contexts. A summarizes the analysis of the case findings applying significant challenge to the future sustainability the Moynihan model. of the Department’s performance management system emerged externally with a new governor and For the first three features that Moynihan finds internally via its conflicted organizational culture. In significant, these cases illustrate a significantly 2011 with a new governor taking office, Movassaghi different approach. Each of the two cases illustrate a did not continue at Department of Toxic Substances highly decentralized approach. Neither case started Control. With the departure of Movassaghi, the with the centers of power in the legislative and organizational culture asserted itself in pushing executive branches. In the case of the Performance back against the Performance Management Board Management Council, the discussion started within system. Most significantly, the newly appointed the membership on the need to write a charter

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(Performance Management Council, 2010a). The Second, the cases diverge regarding equality of Council meetings included discussion of what its participants. For the Performance Management Council, mission should be moving forward. Subsequently, the charter (Performance Management Council, with the transition of leadership from the Little Hoover 2010a), survey instrument, and report (Performance Commission staff to the co-chairs from different Management Council, 2010b) developed from drafts state departments, the Performance Management circulated to all members, and all comments were Council members revisited the original charter. In the treated as discussions among equals. In contrast, the Department of Toxic Substances Control, the director Department of Toxic Substances Control performance initiated the performance management discussions management system developed from the top down, based on past professional experience with the support and the participants acknowledged the hierarchy. of a longstanding civil servant. Third, in each of the cases, the participants shared The second divergence from the Moynihan model the Moynihan model of an implicit belief that was that neither case depended on support from organizational learning was possible. For example, a the centralized state Department of Finance and participant in the Performance Management Council proceeded with existing financial resources. For the expressed the following: “I have called on folks Performance Management Council, the Little Hoover in other agencies and looked at their performance Commission initiated the process with existing staff management work, and they have called me and and resources. Meetings were hosted by a local looked at our [department’s]work” (Robertson, 2012). university without cost to the state. For the Department In the Department of Toxic Substances Control a of Toxic Substances Control, the advisory council was participant stated, “we realized there that we were formed with volunteer members and the department sitting on the data and the data just needed to be seen hosted meetings in its conference room. Current staff from a different lens” (Verado, 2011). Both cases provided support, with executives and managers used discussion forums for organizational learning. reporting as part of their assigned responsibilities. In the case of the Department of Toxic Substances Control, the forums included both the Performance The third contrast with the Moynihan model was the Review Board (PRB) and the executive team bi- absence of involvement by elected officials in either weekly meetings. In the case of the Performance case for symbolic or other reasons. Performance Management Council, the meetings became forums management discussions in both cases were initiated to hear from executives from varied agencies and to without the personal involvement of either the facilitate networking among professionals to advance governor or elected officials. Governor Jerry Brown performance management systems. (2011) did issue Executive Order B-13-11 at the start of his term calling for cost-effective budgeting, but The fourth feature of Moynihan’s model that dialogue he did not specify the development of performance shapes culture in everyday interactions was present management systems in either case. in each of the two cases. For the Performance Management Council, the executive director of the However, the features of the cases align strongly Little Hoover Commission described a central goal with five features in Moynihan’s model. First, the to promote “an alternative narrative to the idea that Performance Management Council was comprised government workers are not committed to making of advanced public service career professionals. The things better,” and that they “are extremely committed executive director of the Little Hoover Commission, in an environment of shrinking revenue and hostility” Stuart Drown, and the director of the Department of (Drown, 2012). Similarly, the chief budget officer for Toxic Substances Control, Maziar Movassaghi, were Department of Toxic Substances Control noted that relatively new appointees to state government, but the dialog was central to shaping the culture for executive participants in each case were career civil servants. staff: “in the bi-weekly meetings . . . people expect these

Callahan • 141 The Emergence and Divergence in Performance conversations on performance” (Robertson, 2012). In learning forums, what is beneficial, and what drives each case, strategy developed forums for discussion conversations from observational studies and then to to shape organizational culture. Central to each was compare the findings across levels of government and the role of professional conversations, informed by policy arenas. The Performance Management Council experience: “the Council changed conversations on case illustrates a successful bottom-up strategy where how legislators talked to department heads about collaboration between equals drives the process. The goals and performance. The council staff would ask, Department of Toxic Substances Control experience ‘how can we steer changes in the conversations? What suggests that a top-down leadership strategy cannot different questions need to be asked?’” (Foster, 2012). overcome longstanding organizational culture. The In the Department of Toxic Substances Control, structural arrangement does not appear to determine “conversations cemented performance management the outcome; the difference appears to be in the rooted systems into place” (Robertson, 2012). For the in the forums for conversations, which in turn shape Performance Management Council, the conversations organizational culture. created an organizational culture that led varied participants to describe their shared involvement and Second, the eight features of Moynihan’s model might participation as one of the highlights of their state be less linear or separate and rather more “nested” service. These conversations among equals contrasted (Ostrom, 1990), with each feature affecting the others. with the perception of hierarchical conversations in Or as suggested in the organizational change research the Department of Toxic Substances Control. by Fernandez and Rainey (2006), the driving features are not additive but highly interactive. The fifth feature of Moynihan’s model that long- term success depended on other organizational forces Third, framing emergence of performance management explains the divergent outcomes in each case. The systems with policy diffusion research (Liu and Li, Performance Management Council’s sustainability 2016) offers analytic leverage in explaining the results. is based on the resources committed by the Little These cases suggest that policy leadership matters. Hoover Commission for initial staffing, as well as the Neither case comes into existence without the initiative voluntary participation of members and the resources of leaders. The Performance Management Council of time and staffing committed by the initial co-chairs. case is a model best characterized as distributive The breakdown in the Department of Toxic Substances leadership with a consensus process of decision- Control performance management system came from making by the participants. The contexts of leadership a shift in politically appointed leadership stemming in developing these two strategies were important. from the governor’s office accompanied by a tradeoff The varied contexts can explain the divergent policy in the policy process that replaced performance diffusion in the two cases. In the Council case, the management systems with the development of green context was voluntary: The director of the Little chemistry standards. Hoover Commission had no formal authority over any of the participants. In the Department of Toxic Explanations for Divergence Substances Control, the context and policy diffusion The divergence of these cases from three of the features were hierarchical: The director had authority over staff. of Moynihan’s model, as well as their alignment with The differences in sustainability between the cases five of the features, has implications for understanding illustrate the impact of context on policy diffusion. the emergence of performance management systems. First, the split results may derive from the different Fourth, the divergence from the Moynihan model’s context between these cases at the state level and features might be explained by the reform challenges the federal cases from which Moynihan drew his suggested by March and Olsen (1983): The problem research. The potential for context to drive differences of sustained attention on organizational change. Or by suggests the need to explain what goes on in different the findings of Light (1997) that there is a regular ebb

142 • Chinese Public Administration Review Volume 9 Issue 2, December 2018 and flow to reform efforts. Perhaps the Department of These findings encourage future research to compare Toxic Substances Control shift from a performance dimensions identified by Moynihan and others in management focus to a new policy emphasis on green examining top-down systems to see if there are chemistry is predictable in the shifting tides of reform. different outcomes than for systems described in these cases that emerge from the bottom up. This offers the Conclusion potential to move from exploratory case studies to The overall finding in these two cases is that the confirmatory factor analysis. emergence of new performance management systems can be explained by the features of successful learning Connecting performance management with the forums. In practice, the emergence of performance research streams on the reform of public agencies and management systems can readily be taken for granted. policy diffusion supports research agendas that can The case of the Department of Toxic Substances replenish the depleted intellectual capital needed for Control effectively conveys the difficulty in sustaining addressing a range of “wicked” governance problems a performance management forum. Shifting public (Kettl, 2006). Recent critiques outline the capacity sector executive conversations to a focus on limits of democratic governance (for example, performance might appear as a given from the outside, Fukuyama, 2013; Kettl, 2016) and what Roberts (2017) but as a longtime observer of California politics Daniel describes as loss of mastery. Locating learning forums Weintraub noted in an editorial, “incredible as it may for performance management in the larger context of seem, most government programs don’t have clear reform may shift performance management research and measurable goals and objectives against which from an instrumental focus to an expanded approach the taxpayers and state legislators can hold managers that addresses the larger questions of governance. accountable” (2009; 15). Limits Future research The limits of these case study findings are inherent This research illustrates that it is possible to study to the case study method. These limits include performance management systems as they emerge. generalizability to other performance management A potential set of comparison cases exist with the cases (George and Bennett, 2005; 13). Initially, the simultaneous emergence of a range of performance selection of the cases due to access and convenience management systems for new projects across varied creates the potential for selection bias (George federal agencies for the American Recovery and and Bennett, 2005; 22). The outcomes of each case Reinvestment Act (Callahan, Archibald, Milward were not known in advance for this research, so the and Sterner, 2012; DeSeve, 2012). The research in research was not selected based on a predetermined these federal cases suggests an opportunity to explore outcome, but other potential selection bias issues performance management across a range of local, are present. The cases may also be unrepresentative state and federal governance mechanisms to develop of the wider population of emerging performing comparative analytics. management cases (George and Bennett, 2005; 32). Additionally, as with other case studies, there is a limit The concept of performance management systems to understanding how much weight to attach to each emerging from learning also invites additional study specific explanation in the research findings (George across a range of methods. A focus on iterative dialogue and Bennett, 2005; 27). Other features of the cases, can address the need to increase the understanding of such as the size of the population and budget of the how public managers get information and how that state of California, may limit their generalizability information is diffused. For additional research, the to other states or even smaller nations (George and durability of the Performance Management Council Bennett, 2005; 31). Also, with the clustering of learning forum invites content analysis over time of performance management research around education, primary documents to identify patterns and evolution. policing, and job training (Gerrish, 2016), these cases

Callahan • 143 The Emergence and Divergence in Performance which focus on other policy areas do not have as large Callahan, R., Archibald, S., Milward, B. & Sterner, K. of a sampling as those clusters. It is possible that 2012. Key Actions That Contribute to Successful certain features of performance management systems Implementation: Lessons from the Recovery Act. might vary significantly in different policy areas. IBM Center for the Business of Government. June. Wash., DC. An ongoing research challenge is to explain the de Lancer Julnes, P. (2012). Accountability unbound. enduring qualities of public organizations and the Public Administration Review, 72, 615-622. possibilities for change to occur despite the tendency de Lancer Julnes, P. & Holzer, Marc. (2001). Promoting toward path dependency. A focus on iterative dialogue the Utilization of Performance Measures in Public in learning forums moves the lines of inquiry away Organizations: An Empirical Study of Factors from hierarchy or structure to a search for mechanisms Affecting Adoption and Implementation. Public that facilitate cooperation. The findings in these cases Administration Review, 61, 693-708 suggest that researching public-sector reform can DeSeve, G.E. (2011). Managing the Recovery move beyond the continued layering of government Act: An Insider’s View. IBM Center for the processes (Light, 1997) and organizational change Business of Government. Wash., DC. http://www. research can move beyond being simply additive to businessofgovernment.org/sites/default/files/ studying the complex interactions of features. The Managing%20Recovery.pdf interaction among the eight features of the Moynihan Department of Finance, State of California. http:// model in developing and sustaining learning forums www.dof.ca.gov. Accessed July 13, 2016. could be explored across national and state case Department of Toxic Substances Control. (2010). studies to find shared explanatory factors and isolate California Department of Toxic Substances features where context matters. Control Performance Management System. CA: Sacramento. REFERENCES Department of Toxic Substances Control. (2007). Strategic planning & performance measurement Aristigueta, M. & Zarook, F. N. (2011). Managing staff training handbook. CA: Sacramento. July. for results in six states: A decade of progress Drown, S. (2010). Cover Letter. Performance demonstrates that leadership matters. Public management in California state government. Performance & Management Review, September 30. 35, 177-201. Drown, S. (2011). Interview. Sacramento, CA. Borins, S. (2012). Making narrative count: A December 6. narratological approach to public management Eisenhardt, K. M. & Graebner, M. (2007). Theory innovation. Journal of Public Administration building from cases: Opportunities and challenges. Research and Theory. 22, 165–189 Academy of Management Journal, 50, 25-32. Brown, J. (2011). Governor directs administration to Fernandez, S., Cho, Y.J. & Perry, J. (2010). Exploring cut costs, increase efficiency using honest, common- the link between integrated leadership and public sense budgeting methods. Executive Order B-13-11. sector performance. The Leadership Quarterly, 21, Office of the Governor. CA: Sacramento retrieved 308–323. at http://gov.ca.gov/news.php?id=17335 . Fernandez, S. & Rainey, H.G. (2006). Managing Brusca, I. & Montesinos, V. (2016). Implementing successful organizational change in the public performance reporting in local government: A sector. Public Administration Review, 66, 168-176. cross-countries comparison. Public Performance Foster, T. (2012). Interview. Rancho Cordova, & Management Review, 39, 506-534. California. March 19. Callahan, R. F. 2007. “Governance: The Collision of Fukuyama, F. (2013). What is governance? Politics and Cooperation”, Public Administration Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Review. 77, 290-301. Administration, and Institutions, 26, 347–368.

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Dr. Callahan’s ([email protected]) research, consulting, publications, and teaching focuses on leadership behaviors and strategy and performance management practices that are effective in complex, demanding and dynamic environments in the public sector. Dr. Callahan is a Professor at the University of San Francisco, with a joint appointment in the USF School of Management and in the USF School of Nursing and Health Professions.

Dr. Callahan is an elected Fellow the National Academy of Public Administration, a nonprofit academy chartered by Congress for the past 50 years to advise on complex public governance challenges. He is the current Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Public Leadership, a peer reviewed journal, published by Emerald Press, United Kingdom. He was a visiting researcher at Oxford University, 2016 and was the Visiting Scholar 2017-2018 for the Center for California Studies at the California State University, Sacramento. He received a Fulbright Specialist Program award in 2011 for lectures on public institutions at Aydin University in Istanbul, Turkey.

He has been published in journals such as Public Administration Review, Public Management Review, Public Manager, Government Finance Officers Review, and The National Civic Review.

Callahan • 147 Chinese Public Administration CPAR Review Volume 9 Issue 2, December 2018

Book Review: State Governance by Targets: Bureaucratic Accountability, Performance Gaps, and Government Behaviors Jie Gao National University of Singapore, Singapore

erformance management has been a salient Accountability, Performance Gaps, and Government feature of public-sector reforms around the Behaviors, by Liang Ma, provides a timely and valuable Pglobe since the 1980s. In the past two decades, discussion on this topic. It enhances our understanding the literature on the content, rationale, challenges, and of key factors in the establishment of certain types of consequences of these reforms as implemented both performance targets in Chinese local governments. It in the West and in the East has grown rapidly. Studies also provides insightful discussion on the challenges show that one feature these reforms share is the use of of the reforms, with a focus on the extent to which the preestablished, often specific and quantified, goals and evaluation system affects bureaucratic accountability targets to motivate public officials to achieve intended and in what ways it changes government behaviors. results. That being the case, one important angle to investigate when studying the so-called “governance- The book has eight chapters. The first explains why the by-targets” regimes (Bevan and Hood, 2006) is how study of performance goals, both as a general global performance targets and goals are established and feature and in China in particular, matters. Chapter adjusted over time. In turn, this leads to questions of 2 examines the attributes of China’s nationally set how the attributes of performance goals, targets, and performance goals. It finds that nearly 80 percent of indicators affect the behavior of public officials. performance targets set by the State Council were not quantified and that realization of these targets required There is a rich literature on goal setting and its effects the cooperation of multiple agencies. As can be imagined, on employee behavior in both public and private-sector these highly demanding but hard-to-measure targets organizations. Studies of public-sector organizations are very challenging to meet. Chapters 3–5 examine mainly examine cases in western democracies (Chun performance goal setting at the provincial level from two and Rainey, 2005; Latham et al., 2008). By comparison, perspectives: the motivation of provincial leaders and much less is known about how government performance the locality’s perceived performance gaps. These three goals and targets are established and fine-tuned in chapters present interesting findings on how these key authoritarian states such as China. The issue definitely factors affect the clarity, difficulty level, and priority of deserves more scholarly attention as China has used a economic targets. Chapters 6–7 examine the implications target-based performance management system as a key of the target-based performance management reforms. policy instrument to govern its localities for over three They find that in the case of environmental protection, decades. A study of China’s experience of governance the naming-and-shaming mechanism is less useful than by targets would reveal the dynamics of one of the most conventional wisdom assumes. Under the performance important administrative reforms in China and shed ranking system, although municipal-level governments important light on issues and challenges that are common are in general compelled to release more information to performance management reforms elsewhere. about pollutants, those near the bottom of the league table do not show more concern about improving air State Governance by Targets: Bureaucratic quality than those with better ranks. The book ends by

State Governance by Targets: Bureaucratic Accountability, Performance Gaps, and Government Behaviors by Liang Ma, Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2018, ISBN 978-7-5201-2363-1, 280 pp. Address correspondence to the author at [email protected]. View this article online at cpar.net

148 • Chinese Public Administration Review Volume 9 Issue 2, December 2018 summarizing its main findings and indicating directions overview of the whole discussion at a single glance. In for future research. the future, a theoretical framework could be developed that integrates the factors and dimensions this study has State Governance by Targets shows that in China’s raised. Such a framework would likely be informative context, government performance goal setting is affected and useful for goal setting beyond China’s context. by two key factors. The first is individual-level motivation on the part of public officials, especially the local leaders, There are some issues that, in my view, are not sufficiently which plays a key role in deciding the difficulty level of addressed and need further explanation. For example, if targets. At the provincial level, leaders’ motivation is gaming is widespread, do local officials’ gaming strategies influenced by two factors: their level of tenure in their affect goal setting at both local and national levels? If current position, and the geographic area from which yes, how? In addition to gaming, how do negotiation, they were promoted to their current position. Findings bargaining, and collusion, which have been essential show that officials who are in the early or last stages of features of China’s political patronage system, affect their tenure are more likely to set stretch economic goals policy goal setting, adjustment, and reporting of progress? and targets than their mid-tenure peers. Officials who are promoted from the locality are more likely to set up Furthermore, a distinctive feature of China’s goal stretch economic goals and targets compared to officials setting process is that the most important targets are who are appointed by the upper levels or transferred allocated level-by-level down the hierarchy. It means from other localities. The second is an organization-level that provincial leaders have greater autonomy than their factor: performance gaps. Understanding performance counterparts at lower administrative levels in establishing gaps is important for analyzing the establishment and targets. Additionally, although local officials generally adjustment of performance targets. There are two types of have a high degree of flexibility in setting targets on performance gaps: the gap between a locality’s historical GDP and its growth rate, they have less in other types record of target accomplishment and its accomplishment of targets, such as limiting the number of petitioners of current targets, and the gap between a locality’s or work-related fatalities. The book mainly examines accomplishment of current targets and the performance of the cases of GDP targets that allow a certain degree its political or geographical neighbors in accomplishing of flexibility for adjustment—but the overall picture the same targets. The two types of gaps are fundamental is more complicated. Nevertheless, our knowledge of for explaining the variations in economic goal setting China’s governance-by-targets regime still only has across localities and how these goals are fine-tuned over touched on the “tips of the icebergs,” as the author points time. When setting up performance goals, local leaders out. In that context, this book represents a noteworthy need to “look back” over their own records, “look endeavor that moves the discussion forward. around” at their political competitors, and “look up” to the expectations of the central authorities. REFERENCES Bevan, G., & Hood, C. (2006). What’s measured is what The book synthesizes the author’s years of work in matters: Targets and gaming in the English public this area. It provides a comprehensive analysis of health care system. Public Administration, 84(3), performance goal setting and its implications in China. 517–538. Each of the major chapters is based on a journal article, Chun, H. Y., & Rainey, G. (2005). Goal ambiguity and and each of them combines theoretical discussions and organizational performance in U.S. federal agencies. empirical findings on one specific issue. Although the Journal of Public Administration Research and book is written in Chinese, the major findings of the book Theory, 15, 1–30. can be found in the author’s publications in English- Latham, G. P., Borgogni, L., & Petitta, L. (2008). Goal language journals (such as Public Administration). An setting and performance management in the public advantage of putting the findings from separate articles sector. International Public Management Journal, into one book is that it enables the reader to gain an 11(4), 385–403.

Gao • 149 Call for Manuscripts

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• Administrative Reform • Administrative Law • Public Policy Implementation • Public Sector Innovation • Public Sector Human Resource Management • Public Performance Management • Public Budgeting and Finance • Nonprofit Management and Civil Society • E-government and Smart Cities • Intellectual History of Public Administration Marc Holzer • Comparative Public Administration Editor-in-Chief Distinguished Professor, Suffolk Submissions should not have been published previously and are not University - Boston; Professor Emeritus, Rutgers under consideration for publication elsewhere. University - Newark [email protected] Please submit all manuscripts via cpar.net. If you have any questions, Elaine Yi Lu please directly contact [email protected]. For more Editor information, please visit the CPAR website cpar.net. Associate Professor, City University of New York - John Jay College [email protected] © 2018 The Institute for Public Service at Suffolk University - Boston. CPAR Volume 9 Issue 2 | December 2018 ISSN: 1539-6754 Online ISSN: 2573-1483 University - Boston The Institute for Public Service at Suffolk © 2018 Chinese Public Administration Review (CPAR) Chinese Public