对公民监督必要性和实现前提的理论思考——基于委托代理理论的视角

Theoretical Reflections on the Necessity and Precondition of the Realization of Civic Supervision——from the Perspective of the Principal-Agent Theory

公民与政府之间的关系是委托代理关系。全体公民为了实现其共同目标并基于使其利益最大化的需求将其自身的一部分权力转移出来形成公共权力并委托给其代理人(政府)来行使。从权力的内在逻辑、理论的前提假设的角度可知公民监督的必要性。而对公民监督效果的理论分析可以知道只有监督(而且是有效的监督)才能保证委托人(公民)的利益不受或少受损失,进而使其利益最大化。委托代理双方目标函数的不一致性和双方的信息不对称性决定了公民对政府进行有效监督的首要前提是必须推行政府代理行为透明化。

The principal-agent relationship exists between citizen and government.In order to achieve the common objective and on the basis of the requirement of maximizing their interests,all citizens entrust their agent,the government with the public power formed by transferring part of their own power.The necessity of civic supervision can be seen from the inherent logic of power and the hypothesis of theory.Theoretical analysis of the effect of livic supervision reveals that only supervision（and effective supervision） can ensure that the interests of the principal（citizens） will not suffer or be less damaged and further can be maximized.Because of the inconsistency of objective function and the asymmetry of information between the principal and the agent,the primary precondition for effective supervision is the transparency of the agent＇s acts.