The Inter-Ministerial Co-Opetition In Public Policy-Making In Contemporary China

Based on an institutional rational-choice theoretical analytical framework,the dissertation compares ten typical central social policy cases from a perspective combining process and structure,which indicates that the inter-ministerial co-opetition plays an important role in the making and output of these public policy.The dissertation summarizes an explanatory mechanism fitting the Chinese character,which is called inter-ministerial co-opetition.On that basis,the dissertation constructs an integrated analytical framework from the aspects of both institution and actor,using the institutionally rational choice theory.From the view of decision-making process,the national ministries play the leading role in the following four aspects.First,ministries identify and confirm policy issues;secondly,ministries are proponents of policy agenda;thirdly,ministries draft policy scheme;fourth,ministries are promoters for policy legalization.Ministries conduct different effects on policy-making in different stages through different behaviors.From the view of decision-making mechanism,the co-opetition among national ministries determine the output of Chinese public policy.The core issue of inter-ministerial co-opetition is to seek consensus among different ministries in order to obtain the most comprehensive cognitions on public issues and to achieve composition of forces.Overall,in the stage of establishing agenda,ministries cooperate mainly in forms of communication and joint research;in the stage of drafting and issuing policy,both cooperation and competition are active and sufficient.The main forms of cooperation include participation in the policy drafting and modification,negotiating specific policy measures,reporting policy programs together and so on.The main forms of competition are through mobilizing local forces,borrowing the power of other sectors,seeking support from superiors,having the aid of the party's report or resolution or the government's work report,insisting without compromise and other forms of the game on the specific policy measures.From the view of decision-making institutional basis,the government regime determining inter-ministerial co-opetition includes two aspects.On one hand,"tiaotiao",which means a special relationship between central and local government,and the clutch-type decision-making system between the party and the government.These tow elements concentrate policy-making functions into ministries in longitudinal and transverse directions respectively;On the other hand,a stricter central bureaucracy,including a more detailed central bureaucracy in the transverse direction and rigid gradational divisional leadership system direction,both of which makes ministries become the main body of public policy formulation,and the decision-making procedures based on ministries consensus constitutes the direct cause of the inter-ministerial co-opetition.From the view of the resource base of decision-makers,the establishment of an inter-ministerial co-opetition benefits from ministries' ability to occupy one or more resources.Among these resources,function is the most basic resource,but in the real decision-making system,it is definitely not the only critical resource.In contrast,political resources in the party-government decision-making system may play a more significant role.In addition,there are organization resources,relationship resources,knowledge and information resources and other various types of resources.The resources a ministry owns determine its voices,effects and substantial results in policy-making,so the inter-ministerial co-opetition is subject to the endowment of resources.Meanwhile,the ministries' subjective initiatives have retroaction on the regime.On one hand,actors may use suitable tactics to keep and expand current resources,on the other hand,actors can make better use of current resources,in order to get a better position in the inter-ministerial co-opetition.From the view of policy makers' initiative,the inter-ministerial co-opetition is mainly based on certain behavioral preferences.In general,ministries' behavioral preferences fundamentally point to public interest.However,because of the public interest is an concept,and is highly subjective,so the ministries'understanding of public interest are different based on their different function positioning preferences,cognitive behavioral preferences and bureaucratic self-interest preferences.When the behavioral preferences of different ministries meet each other,they tend to produce a number of tangled policy issues.In the inter-ministerial preference level,we can treat the consensus among ministries as an equilibrium state after the collision,friction,association and other forms of interaction.Therefore,the dynamic balance of the inter-ministerial preferences is very important.The achievement of inter-ministerial preferences balance requires ministries not only conduct adequate competition and cooperation with each other,but also follow a series of system constraints,and this is the logical basis of the inter-ministerial co-opetition in the "actors" level.Based on the foregoing,inter-ministerial co-opetition decision-making is participative,inclusive,deliberative,balanced,centralized and adaptive.The decision-making mechanism helps to stimulate the energy of public policy making and optimization,helps to improve the public welfare of the public policy's content,contribute to the formation of public policy implementation force.However,no matter how good an institution design is,if there is bias in practical operation,it will not achieve intended aims,and even bring some negative effects.For instance,if the cost of co-opetition is too high,the output of policy may be delayed.For another example,if an actor makes too many compromises,the public interest may be sacrificed.Consequently,we should promote benign inter-ministerial co-opetition,and suppress pernicious inter-ministerial co-opetition,which means perfections on the level of both mechanism and practice.