中国地方政府数字治理的“过程”与“组织”

Bringing back the"Market":The"Process"and"Organization"of Digital Governance among Local Governments in China

现阶段,我国地方政府数字化治理面临困境,具体体现为:建设跨应用场景解决实际问题的能力不足、破解部门分割的效果不佳。回顾文献发现,已有研究偏重考察治理结果以及科层组织在数字治理中的作用,相对忽视关于其他治理主体融入治理过程的复杂机制的深描。本文通过比较A省、B市两地的数字政府建设案例,建构出“结构-主体-治理机制”的数字治理过程分析框架,进而发现:在依赖行政机制和注重融入市场机制两类情形中,数字治理分别呈现出“直线-职能式”与“矩阵式”两种过程演化模式。内生于现代数字政府治理过程中的政企互动,会因面临行政机制的过度主导而发生脱嵌,引发后期数字政府建设模式的行政化;也可能面临强有力的契约约束,在治理过程中逐步互嵌,形塑出市场型的数字政府建设模式。本文在识别数字治理主体异质性的基础上,引入结构化的动态视角,加深了同类研究对中国地方政府数字治理微观情境的理解与把握,丰富了治理过程中组织间互动行为策略的解释机制。

Digital governance amongst Chinese local governments are increasingly challenged to enhance the ability of developing multi-functional and cross-agency applications so as to break bottlenecks in public service provision through the dismantling of bureaucratic departmentalism.A systematic review of the literature found that existing studies focus on the outcomes and the single role of bureaucratic organizations in digital governance,while ignoring the in-depth description of the complex mechanism how other governance entities integrate into the governance process.This paper compares the digital government construction cases of A province and B city,establishing a digital governance process analysis framework of"structure-subjects-governance mechanism",and further discovers that:Conditioned by the varying degree of reliance on the bureaucracy and the market,digital governance presents two diverging evolution directions,the"straight-line functional"mode and the"matrix"mode.The interaction between government and business,a must that initiates and enables the process of digital governance,will be disengaged due to the excessive dominance of the administrative mechanism,resulting in the"straight-line functional"mode.In contrast,the government-business collaboration may also be pressured by strong contractual constraints,increasingly embed each other in the governance process,and lead to the"matrix"mode,namely a market-oriented digital government construction model.Upon the identification of the heterogeneity across digital governance subjects,this paper introduces a structuration perspective,which enriches researchers’understanding and knowledge in the micro situation and detailed operation of digital governance in China,and explores the behavioral strategies of inter-organizational interaction in the process of digital governance.