地方政府职能堕距与社会公共领域治理困境——基于广场舞冲突案例的分析

Local Government Function Lag and Predicament of Public Governance in Social Public Sphere:Based on Analysis of Events of Square Dance Clashes

完善社会公共领域治理对于缓解社会矛盾、构建和谐社会具有基础性作用。本文通过广场舞冲突案例的比较分析,探讨了地方政府职能堕距对于社会公共领域治理所带来的挑战。资源竞争性引致的社会自主治理困境需要政府勇于承担"元治理"角色、积极履行社会管理与公共服务职能,但地方政府职能堕距现象加剧了社会公共领域治理困境。地方政府职能堕距是地方政府职能"应然"和"实然"的差异,主要体现在两个方面:纵向上,地方政府在职能转变方向、内容和速度方面均落后于中央政府;横向上,地方政府的职能履行滞后于经济社会发展要求。本文通过对地方政府职能履行过程中"四张脸"——哭丧的脸、冷漠的脸、尴尬的脸与微笑的脸之形象比较,明确辨识地方政府职能堕距现象,有助于更好地把握社会公共领域治理困境产生的原因和明确未来地方政府职能转变的方向。当然,基于判断抽样的案例选择会在某种程度上忽略其它可能影响社会公共领域治理困境的因素。

The objective of this paper is mainly to explore the relationship between local government function lag and the governance predicaments in social public sphere,which is based on identifying clearly the phenomenon of local government function lag. An exploratory multi-case study,involving nine events of Square Dance clashes occurred in the last few years,was conducted. The analysis,based on the government functions transformation literature,reveals that the conflicts in social public sphere,which is mainly induced by competition of resource,require government to undertake the role of meta-governance,and exercise actively social management and public service functions,but the phenomenon of local government function lag aggravate the challenge of public governance in social public sphere indirectly. The article also argue that local government function lag is the gap between 'to be' and 'ought to be' in term of governments' functions exercising,and is mainly embodied in two aspects:from a vertical perspective,it represents the lag state of local governments in the orientation,speed,and detailed measures of functions shift,compared to central government;from a horizontal perspective,it stands for the function-exercising of local governments cannot match the pace of socio-economic development. The key limitation of the article is that a judgmental sampling strategy was deployed to choose study cases,which may make the study neglect some important factors that may influence governance effectiveness in social public sphere. Based on the metaphorical comparison among ' long face ', ' cold face ', ' embarrassing face ' and ' smiling face',this article identifying the causality between phenomenon of local government function lag and the predicament of governance in social public sphere,and proposes a conceptual framework to illustrate how the exercising of governments' functions can affect the social public sphere governance performance,as well as contribute to clearly defining the reform orientation of local governments' functions transformation.