试点选择的偏好:基于中央部委发起试点的政策文本分析

Pilot Selecting Preferences:Based on a Textual Analysis of Central Government Policy Documents

试点选择是政策试点的关键环节,影响试点创新与推广效果。然而,研究人员缺少近距离观察或直接访谈决策者的机会,这制约了试点选择研究的发展。本研究将试点政策文本视为决策者对试点选择条件的官方表述,并挖掘文本中试点选择的偏好。本研究收集了“十三五”时期385项中央部委发起试点的政策文本和部分试点的首轮试点名单。研究获得三项发现。第一,中央部委发起试点向经济发达地区或区域中心城市聚集,但各政策领域的聚集程度不同。第二,词频和共现关系分析显示“择优选点”和“重视基础”的总原则。第三,各政策领域的偏好与重视条件不尽相同,经济发展类试点强调创新试验和重点战略,农业农村和社会保障类试点则关注代表性,环境保护类试点兼顾全局需要和重点问题。

The selection of pilots,a core stage in the policy experimentation process,affects the innovation and diffusion of the experiment,and any sampling bias may negatively affect the representativeness and applicability of the policy experiments.Because researchers have few opportunities to directly observe or interview the decisionmakers in the policy selection process,there has been limited research on the selection of pilots.Surveys are particularly difficult to conduct for large-N studies that would enable researchers to compare and refine the characteristics and logic behind the selection of pilots.This study regards policy documents on policy experimentation as official statements that reveal the preferences and required standards of the decision-makers.Official published statements provide an alternative perspective to look at the biases and considerations of the decision-makers when they design policy experiments and select pilots.We have collected policy documents on 385 policy experiments during the 13th Five-Year Plan and then have created a pilot city dataset on the first-round list of experiments.A Chinese word frequency analysis of the content of these related policy documents then looked for important factors that may influence selection of the pilots.The study yields three findings.First,pilots are concentrated in national and regional central cities,and the geographical distribution of the pilots among 336 cities in China is highly uneven.Second,word frequency co-occurrence analyses show that decision-makers overwhelmingly prefer cities with rich work experience and better conditions.Last but not least,a cross-policy-domain study shows that the preferences and concerns of decision-makers vary depending on the different policy areas.Based on keywords,we have developed six dimensions to measure the decision-makers’priorities in terms of selection of the pilots.These include the pre-work foundation,willingness,implementation capacity,representativeness,ability to innovate,and strategy-oriented thinking.Economic policy experiments focus on the innovative abilities and strategic importance of the cities,and therefore this category of policy experiments is concentrated in cities with a higher level of economic performance.However,major concerns of agricultural and rural policy experiments are their representativeness.At the beginning of the policy experiments,decision-makers also consider the regional diversity and the adaptability for experimentation.In terms of environmental policy,the representativeness and strategic importance of the cities are of equal importance to the decision-makers.The findings suggest decision-makers follow different preferences and logics in selecting pilots according to the policy goals,the environment,and the implementation conditions for specific policy experiments.Each policy domain has special and unique considerations and requirements during the period of selecting the pilots.We propose that the policy domain is an important element that explains the diverse logics behind the selection of pilots.