“遴选赛”:社区治理创新“逐顶竞争”的组织机制研究——基于W市N街道的案例

“Selection Competition”: On the Organizational Mechanism of Community Governance Innovation Competition——Based on the Case of N Subdistrict, W City

近年来城市基层政府(街道)职能结构重心由发展经济转向公共服务与社会治理,治理创新成为基层政府的工作要求和政绩呈现的重要机制。出于绩效竞争或管理任务完成的考量,通常街道会采取集中全力建设少数“明星社区”的策略,导致治理创新“亮点叠加”现象,因而与国家鼓励以创新推动面上治理绩效提升的初衷相违背。W市N街道通过“遴选赛”组织机制,激励所辖社区在治理创新中“逐顶竞争”,推动治理创新由点到面的转变,实现了国家鼓励基层治理创新的目标,推动了社区相对均衡发展。研究揭示了“遴选赛”机制的内在机理,“赛马不相马”,创新单位不设门槛、随机选择、机会均等,运用行政赋权、对比择优、资源吸引以及学习增能等四个机制激励社区;讨论了“遴选赛”机制被选择的原因,即主体的认知、平衡的压力、目标的可达性与创新的持续性等影响街道的抉择;拓展了“锦标赛”机制的理论讨论,进一步打开了基层政府激励社区治理创新的组织机制的“暗箱”。

In recent years, the functional focus of urban grassroots governments(subdistricts) had shifted from economic development to public services and social governance, which has made governance innovation the work requirement and important performance of grassroots governments. Considering performance competitions or the completion of management tasks, subdistricts usually adopt the strategy of focusing on the construction of a small number of “star communities”, which results in the phenomenon of “similar highlights” of governance innovation. That is contrary to the original intention of the state to encourage innovation to improve the governance performance. Through the organizational mechanism of the “selection competition”, N Subdistrict in W City encourages communities within its jurisdiction to “race to the top” in governance innovation, promotes the popularization of governance innovation, achieves the goal of encouraging community governance innovation, and promotes the relatively balanced development of communities. This paper reveals the internal mechanisms of the “selection competition”, including the selection of innovation organizations without threshold, random selection, and equal opportunity. The “selection competition” uses four mechanisms of administrative empowerment, comparative selection, resource attraction and improved training to stimulate communities. Furthermore, this paper discusses the reasons for the deployment of the “selection competition” mechanism: the cognition of subjects, the pressure to achieve balanced development, the accessibility of goals and the sustainability of innovation, all of which affect the decision-making of subdistricts. This paper expands the theoretical discussion of the “tournament mechanism” and further opens the “dark box” of the organizational mechanism of grassroots governments to encourage governance innovation of communities.