Research On Punctuated Equilibrium Of Cultural And Economic Policy Changes In China(1978-2021)

Cultural economic policies are regulations that government departments use fiscal,tax,finance and other economic means to guide and regulate cultural activities in a scientific way according to market rules and cultural production rules.Cultural economic policy is an important lever to regulate cultural enterprises,social organizations and people’s cultural activities,as well as an important support for cultural prosperity and development.Cultural economic policy changes and cultural development complement each other.On the one hand,cultural development needs the support and guidance of cultural economic policies.At present,cultural forms and cultural formats are becoming increasingly complicated,cultural economic policies,as the "invisible hand" of the government,play an indispensable role in regulating cultural reform and development.Then,cultural economic policies are constantly enriched and improved with the development of culture.Since reform and opening up,our cultural economic policy changes correspond with the important node of cultural development.The change of cultural economic policies has not only experienced a small gradual adjustment,but also a major change from mainly supporting cultural undertakings to supporting the common prosperity of cultural industries and public cultural services,showing obvious stage characteristics.However,the existing domestic research is mostly limited to explore the perfection path of our cultural economic policy from a certain cultural field or cultural industry’s angle,lacking the theoretical research on the overall changes characteristics and rules of cultural economic policy.Therefore,based on the practice observation and the research present situation,this paper takes our cultural economic policy change since the reform and opening up as the study object,drawing lessons from the basic concept of "punctuated" "equilibrium" in the punctuated equilibrium theory,and tries to explore the following question:What are the characteristics of the cultural economic policy change since the reform and opening up?Does it also follow the characteristics of punctuated and equilibrium changes?What are the reasons for these changes in cultural economic policies?The aim is to grasp the changing rules and give advice for_cultural economic policies in the future.This paper holds that the concepts of "punctuated" and "equilibrium" in the punctuated equilibrium theory can well describe the characteristics of cultural economic policy changes.However,in view of the characteristics of Chinese system,it is not convincing to directly use this theory to interpret the reasons of policy changes.Therefore,this paper refines the valuable viewpoints in the Western classical policy change theory,and draws lessons from the basic concepts of "punctuated" and"equilibrium" in the punctuated equilibrium theory.On this basis,the analysis framework of "attention shift-path dependence" is constructed by absorbing the viewpoints of policy nonlinear change,bounded rationality drive,institutional structure constraint and policy window opening.In the analysis methods,this article uses the comparative analysis method,content analysis method,qualitative comparative analysis(QCA)and case analysis method to systematically discuss the characteristics of cultural economic policy change,the driving factors of policy punctuated change and the internal mechanism of equilibrium change.The contents are as follows:(1)To analyze the process of cultural economic policy change since the reform and opening up,and to analyze the characteristics of policy punctuated and equilibrium changes.In this paper,by analyzing the annual distribution of cultural economic policy quantity and the key points of policy change,the course of Chinese cultural economic policy change since reform and opening up consists of four stages.Meanwhile,by referring to the theory of policy content analysis and policy paradigm,this paper discusses and summarizes the process of policy change and the characteristics of punctuated equilibrium change in different stages.(2)To analyze the driving factors of the punctuated changes of cultural economic policies.This paper holds that the attention shift of policy makers is a key link of policy change.Combining variable setting in punctuated equilibrium theory,based on the characteristics of Chinese cultural economic policy,this paper selects the main factors influencing decision-maker’s attention transfer.And through qualitative comparative analysis(QCA),the influencing factors and condition combination of policy punctuated change are discussed.(3)To explore the internal mechanism of the equilibrium change of cultural economic policies.This paper analyzes the constraining effect and concrete manifestation of path dependence on cultural economic policy changes,as well as the formation reasons of path dependence.At the same time,the main factors of the formation of path dependence are extracted to analyze the equilibrium changes of cultural economic policy and explore the internal mechanism formed in three equilibrium change stages of Chinese cultural economic policy.(4)Improving the analysis frame of "shift of Attention-path dependence"according to the empirical analysis results,summarizing the theoretical enlightenment and practical experience of the study of cultural economic policy changes,on this basis,putting forward our cultural economic policy optimization path.The results are as follows:(1)Since the reform and opening up,the cultural economic policy of China has experienced three equilibrium periods and one punctuated period,which presents the characteristics of nonlinear policy change.The policy changes experienced a equilibrium period of supporting the recovery and development of cultural undertakings(1978-1991),and a equilibrium period of exploring the combination of cultural fields and the market(1992-2002).To support the development of cultural industries and public services in a punctuated period(2003-2012)and improve the quality of cultural industries and public cultural services in a equilibrium period(2013-present).(2)The punctuated change of China’s cultural economic policies is the result of synergistic effects of many factors.Main driving factors including focal event,technological change,economic situation,political situation,the reform of cultural system,cooperation of multiple subjects,policy learning,the different combination of these factors on the formation of the"Institutional reform pressure-policy alignment""emerging industry developmentpolicy support" and "focal event trigger-policy adaptation" three main driving mode.(3)Path dependence is the main factor that constrains the equilibrium changes of Chinese cultural economic policies.The path dependence formed by the idea,conversion cost(decided by the input cost,increasing reward,vested interest restriction)and operation cost(decided by network externality and learning effect)will hinder or consolidate the change of our cultural economic policy,thus promote equilibrium change of policy.(4)The cultural economic policies in China should deal with the huge impact brought by the "focus event" on cultural enterprises,comply with the digital technology to the new situation,follow the arrangements for supply-side structural reform,perfect the related system and economic policy,promote collaborative governance among multiple actors,and innovate to improve the efficiency of using policy tools,to improve the policy environment for the development of cultural industries and public cultural services.This article’s innovations are mainly reflected in:First,taking the overall change of our cultural economic policy since reform and opening up as the research perspective,making a comprehensive study of cultural economic policy,breaking through the limitations of previous papers only from a certain cultural field or cultural industry’s angle to study the cultural economic policy.Second,by learning from the classical western policy changes theory,the author constructs the theoretical analysis frame of "attention shift-path dependence" for the first time,and studies the characteristics and causes of China’s cultural economic policy changes,putting forward the observation angle which is not like the study before and puts forward some novel conclusions.Thirdly,it describes the process of cultural economic policy change for the first time by using word frequency statistics and cluster analysis of content analysis method,and uses qualitative comparative analysis(QCA)to explore the factors and condition combination of policy discontinuous change,which improves the scientificity and accuracy of the research results.Fourth,the empirical study shows that Chinese cultural economic policy has experienced three equilibrium periods and one equilibrium period,which shows the characteristics of nonlinear policy change.Among them,the punctuated changes of Chinese cultural economic policy is the result of multiple synergies,path dependence is the main factor that restricts the equilibrium changes of Chinese cultural economic policy.