锦标赛下的默契:地方政府竞争动力的生成机制

Tacit Understanding in Tournament System:Generation Mechanism for Competitive Dynamics of Local Government

主流文献认为中国地方政府竞争动力来源于“锦标赛”制度,而新的制度设计引入多元考核、更高标准和问责不确定的变化被认为削弱了地方政府竞争动力。然而,地方政府仍然展现出强劲的竞争动力。这可以通过“锦标赛下的默契”机制解释。尽管锦标赛的制度给地方政府带来挑战,下级政府竭力使竞赛有利于已,倾向于创造性地推动任务地方化以及展示成功和努力的内容。但上级政府却基于大局进行权衡,考虑了公平的分配、安全的作为以及外部的风险因素。地方政府得以发展出纵向维度的默契行为来适应锦标赛的制度挑战,进而生成较强的竞争动力。“锦标赛下的默契”理论拓展了传统的“锦标赛”理论,为地方政府竞争动力提供了新的见解。

Mainstream literature believes that the competitive motivation of Chinese local governments comes from the"tournament"'system,while the new institutional designs that introduce multiple assessments,higher standards,and changes in accountability are believed to have weakened the competitive motivation of local governments.However,this article observes that local governments still exhibit strong competitive dynamics.This can be explained by the"tacit understanding in tournament system".Although the tournament system creates challenges for local governments,lower-level governments strive to make the competition work in their favor,tending to hide competitive strengths,creatively localize tasks,and showcase success and effort.The higher-level government weighs the situation based on the overall situation,taking into ac-count fair distribution,safe behavior and external risk factors.Local governments were able to develop tacit behaviors in the vertical dimension to adapt to the institutional challenges of the tournament,thereby generating strong competitive dynamics.The"tacit understanding in tournament system"theory expands the traditional"tournament"theory and provides new insights into the competitive dynamics of local governments.