政策设计与民主:目标群体的社会建构理论述评

Policy Design and Democracy:A Theoretical Review of Social Construction of Target Populations

目标群体的社会建构理论是美国学者施耐德和英格兰姆提出的公共政策理论,已经成为西方最具影响力的政策理论之一。该理论关注的是政策如何在不同目标群体中分配利益和负担,以及这种分配对民主的影响问题。该理论缘起于对美国民主危机的思考,致力于设计出有助于民主发展的公共政策。在政策设计理论、社会建构论与批判理论的基础上,该理论提出了一系列重要的理论命题,并在大量经验研究中得到了检验。总体而言,该理论作为政策分析框架与政策民主理论对于中国公共政策研究具有重要的启发价值。

The social construction of target population theory is a public policy theory proposed by American scholars Anne Schneider and Helen Ingram, which has become one of the most influential western policy theories. Their theory focuses on how policies allocate benefits and burdens among different target populations, and the impact of such distribution on democracy. Their theory originated from the reflection of the American democratic crisis and was devoted to the design of public policies that contribute to the development of democracy. On the basis of policy design theory, social construction theory and critical theory, their theory presents a series of important theoretical propositions, which has been tested in a large number of empirical studies. In general, as both a policy analysis framework and a policy democratic theory, their theory is of great significance to public policy research in China.