Manufacturing Typical Experience:Research On Innovation Behavior Of Urban Local Government In Social Governance

Social governance innovation has now become a common practice of governments at all levels.However,innovative conducts promoted by local governments almost have the characteristics of short duration and non-institutionalized,showing the cyclical pattern of “emergeing endlessly –die without any illness – starting over in another way”.This article refers to the phenomenon that local governments are keen on social governance innovation and combine their own characteristics and resources to concentrate their efforts on experience,mode and brand building under the system of championship as "manufacturing typical experience".Why are local governments keen on manufacturing typical experience? What are the possible strategies? What happened?The paper is based on the case study of the “centralization” reform of the Liang Jiang city Lu Street and the comparison of multiple cases,which is analyzed and explained by the analysis framework of the “Optional Project Tournament”.The framework refers to the conducts and mechanism of local governments and their "strategic elites" to carry out innovative competitions through "self-selected projects" in combination with their own endowments and resource structures under the overall atmosphere of the tournament system and the background of the project system.Compared with other perspectives,this analytical framework places more emphasis on the strategic initiative of local governments,rather than treating them as passive project contractors.The study found that Lu Street is keen on social governance innovation,and its dynamic mechanism mainly includes: the pressure mechanism of top-down performance evaluation,the driving mechanism of competition in the same level of government championships,the anti-driving mechanism of the poor functioning system and the pulling mechanism of changing public demand.The manufacturing typical experience of Lu Street lies in its specific resource endowment and opportunity structure,including three aspects: first,the "old model" of Lu Street and the "burden" of historical honor;second,the public sentiment foundation of specific regions and specific people;third,"strengthening the street function,activating the local energy " reform as a specific opportunity structure.The local government is keen on "manufacturing typical experience" and hopes to win the promotion championship competition through self-selected projects in addition to the routine projects of administrative contracting.In this optional tournament,“strategic elites”have played a leading role.They have ideals,beliefs and the feelings and temperament of “want to do things”,Familiar with system operation,strong style,good at persuading superiors,mobilizing subordinates,integrating resources and strategically using the opportunity structure in a specific government hierarchy.The logic of their action is not mainly dominated by political performance,but mainly the realization of personal values.The internal correspondence between the pursuit of personal values and the needs of local social governance has evolved into an important source of power for social change.The study also found that the basic model for local government to carry out social governance innovation and to manufacture typical experience is: learning from the experiences of other regions,planning and implementation of elites,aggregation of limited resources of local government,packaging by external resources such as experts and media,and recognition and promotion by higher levels of government.However,due to the constraints of macro structural background,it often fails to escape the historical cycle law,and will eventually move toward a new round of innovation.Specifically,under the “Optional Project Tournament”,specific local governments often take the lead in “manufacturing typical experience” in social governance innovation through “self-selected projects” to establish a leading position in competition and become a leader in innovation.As the competitors of same level launched their own self-selected projects to attract the attention of higher-level governments,and a new round of Optional Project Tournament was launched,the original leader was forced to become a follower.China’s governments at all levels,especially the local governments,are active governments with agency.The innovation experience of local social governance is constantly emerging,showing the concept of governance transfers from "government standard" to "people-centered",the governance innovation changes from government leading to the party construction,the governance unit extends from community to grid,the governance platform develops from sectoral segmentation to information sharing,and the promotion mode transfers from single-level grass-roots innovation to block-based top-bottom linkage innovation.Their reform and innovation experience is driving the country’s reform and innovation.However,under the “Optional Project Tournament” regime,due to the diminishing effect of reform and innovation itself,the change of "strategic elites" and the change of preferences of higher-level governments,experience manufactured tends to decline and lacks sustainability.In addition to the above factors,there is a further reason for the decline.The essence of local social governance innovation is a kind of terminal governance innovation,with weak autonomy and limited space for innovation.To maintain the vitality of local innovation experience needs to move towards the integrated innovation at "the city level" which is with more resources and stronger overall planning ability.