公共政策过程的三种视角及其对中国政策研究的启示

Three Perspectives to Understand Public Policy Process and their Implications for China Study

近年来中国公共政策形成过程受到各方高度关注。相关研究文献也很多。本文在系统梳理国内外解释政府决策理论的基础上,将其分为三种视角,分别是"利益权力视角"、"理性学习视角"和"理念视角"。这三种竞争性视角都为观察政府决策提供了具有洞察力的理论透镜。文章进一步考察了它们在中国研究中的应用,发现前两种视角已经普遍被吸收到解释中国政府决策的研究中,而相比之下基于理念视角的分析则少之又少。这也使得政治文化、意识形态、政策理念等对决策产生深刻影响的因素并没有得到足够的重视。同时,政治权威作为意识形态等理念的操控者,其在决策过程中的显著作用也没有得到足够的阐释。

The public policy making process of China has been highly concerned by all parties during recent years. There are also a large number of related research literatures. Based on a systematicliterature review, this paper classifies current theories into three perspectives： power--interest, rational learning and ideas. These three competitive perspectives all provide insightful theoretical lenses for the observation of government decision--making process. The paper further examines the application of these perspectives in China study. Based on the examination, we find that the former two perspectives have been widely usedfor the study of China＇s government decision--making process; by contrast, empirical studies based on the idea perspective are rare. As a result, some ideational factors that do shape the formation of public decisions, such as political culture, ideology, and policy ideas, have not received enough attention. Besides, as the controllers of some special types of ideas, such as ideology, the significant roles played by political authorities are not well illustrated.