作为战略性群体的县乡干部(上)——透视中国地方政府战略能动性的一种新方法

County and Township Cadres as a Strategic Group:A New Approach to Political Agency in China's Local State

在评述当代中国地方政府研究文献的基础上,文章引入了一种新的分析框架,以此来考察地方政府在政策执行过程中的群体行为和战略能动性。文章把县乡干部冠以"战略性群体"的称谓。借助这一概念,文章引入的分析框架为深入地了解政策得以有效执行的前提条件提供了一种可行的分析工具。基于发展社会学、皮埃尔·布迪厄(Pierre Bourdieu)的资本形成理论和组织理论的垃圾桶模型等提供的相关知识,以及作者近些年在中国县(或县级市)乡范围内的大量田野调查,文章对县乡干部与其所在的制度环境之间关系进行了研究。

Linking up with and critically assessing the recent literature on the local state in China, this article introduces a new framework to understand group behavior and strategic agency in local policy processes. Conceptualizing county and township cadres as a ＂strategic group,＂ the framework offers a number of analytical tools for better understanding the conditions of effective and ineffective policy implementation. Drawing on in- sights from development sociology, Bourdieu＇s theory of capital formation and the garbage can model from organ- ization theory, against a background of extensive fieldwork in numerous Chinese counties over the last years conducted by the authors, the article intends to theoretically substantiate the current knowledge of China scholars on the. nexus between actors and their institutional environment in the Chinese local state.