折叠型治理:中国传统行政中复杂性事务的应对策略

Folded Governance:A Strategy for Tackling Complex Affairs in China's Traditional Administration

传统行政始终面对着超大规模国家的复杂性事务。为应对复杂性事务,传统行政通常会聚焦核心治理目标,将相对不重要或暂时难以解决的复杂事务折叠,仅运用成本相对较小的方式对其进行简约化、清晰化或间架化治理,形成折叠型治理。折叠型治理策略在中央应对复杂性事务层面、中央处理地方复杂性事务层面、处理基层社会复杂性事务层面都有所体现。文章通过对明代内阁制度、唐代羁縻府州制度与秦汉时期的乡里制度进行历史案例分析,揭示了折叠型治理在中央层面、央地之间以及基层社会的运行机制。并运用有限理性、委托代理等理论对传统折叠型治理有效性进行了理论解释,在归纳与总结的其经验基础上,指出了折叠型治理作为传统行政策略的意义与价值。

Traditional administration has been facing complex affairs in super-large scale state.For tackling such complex affairs,the traditional administration is prone to focus on the primary goal of governance and to fold some complex affairs in related unimportance or temporary difficulty,which is named as Folded Governance,meaning simplified,transparent and indirect governance with an economical method.The folded governance was utilized to cope with complex affairs in the central,local and grassroots level.This paper aims to uncover the operational mechanism of folded governance based on cases of the cabinet system in the Ming dynasty,Jimi system in the Tang Dynasty and township administrative system in the Qin and the Han dynasty.The theory of bounded rationality of principal-agent also can be used to explain the effectiveness of folded governance.This paper indicates the merits and limits of folded governance on the basis of its experience.