国家治理中的工作组模式——基于《人民日报》(1978—2016)相关报道的分析

Pattern of Working Group in State Governance: Evidence from Reports of People's Daily(1978—2016)

工作组模式是中国国家治理体系的有机组成部分,是国家应对常规治理困境的一套制度安排和行为模式,为上级政府调节下级政府的行为提供了重要的政策工具。央地之间的偏好差异、信息不对称与激励机制弱化是工作组模式产生的基本制度逻辑。工作组的运作具有"逐级复制"和"向直接上级负责制"的特点。现有文献中较少关于工作组模式的量化研究。论文搜集了1978年至2016年《人民日报》关于各级政府"工作组"的报道并进行编码,分析了工作组的工作领域、发起者以及随时间变化的规律。实证分析发现:随着政策环境与目标的变化,工作组的主要领域也随之变化;工作组明显受自上而下的政治权威的影响,中央的政策偏好对于工作组的领域影响较大;在经济领域,工作组作为"政府之手",并未被市场机制所替代,各省的经济类工作组数量与其市场化程度正相关。基于此,论文检验了解释工作组模式的注意力假设、政策环境假设、行政运作假设、政府偏好假设。

As an integral part of C hina’state governance sy stem,the w orking group is an institutional arrangement and behavioral pattern aimed at dealing with the failures of the bureaucratic system.For higher-level governments,it is also an important policy instrument used to regulate the behaviors of low er-level governm ents.The basic logics of the w orking group are rooted in the follow ing three phenomena:the differences in preferences betw een governm ental levels,the information asymmetries between the central and local governm en ts,and the weakening of incentive mechanisms.“Top-down replication”and“direct upward accountability”are the main characteristics of the w orking group.However,quantitative research on working groupsis quite scarce in the existing literature.This study collected the reports published in the“People’s Daily”related to the term“W orking Group”at all levels of governm ent from 1978 to 2016.W e then analyzed the work domains,initiators,and rule ch angesrelated to the working groups over tim e.B ased on our findings,the main domains of the working groups were significantly influenced by changes in the policy environm ent and the task environmengt.In addition,working groups were greatly affected by the central governm ent’s policy preferen ces.For example,economic working groups,as the hand of government,have not been replaced by the invisible hand of the market.As we found,the number of provincial economic working groups is positively related to each province’s degree of m arketization.Based on these findings,we put forw ard aseries of propositions-attention allo catio n,changing policy environment,public administration operations,government preferen ce-about China’s working group pattern.