Research On The Bureaucratic Inaction And Its Governance From The Perspective Of Responsibility Politics

Since the 18 th National Congress of the CPC,the Central Committee has taken on the commitment to 1.4 billion Chinese people.It has remained firm in its determination and demonstrated great courage in combating corruption.At the same time,it has taken a systemic approach to addressing both the symptoms and root causes of corruption,ensuring that officials do not dare to be,are denied the opportunity to be,and have no wish to be corrupt,forming a strong deterrent,a rigid constraint,and a conscious ideology.The 20 th National Congress of the CPC reinterpreted the strongest tone of anti-corruption: “As long as the breeding grounds and conditions for corruption still exist,we must keep sounding the bugle and never rest,not even for a minute,in our fight against corruption”.With a decade of unremitting efforts,“hard corruption” in the form of rent-seeking,power-for-money deal and benefit transmission has been effectively curbed,and the anti-corruption struggle has achieved landslide victory and been comprehensively consolidated.In contrast,the erroneous ideas of "wanting to seize power but not taking responsibility" and "being a peacemaker and accomplishing nothing at all" are increasingly prominent.This kind of "soft corruption" that some government officials are neglectful of their duties seriously damages the image of the party and government.If things go on like this,the negative political ecology will shake the foundation of the Party’s governance.Governing corruption means jointly managing "soft corruption" and "hard corruption",both chaos and laziness,integrity and diligence,returning power and public servants to the rightful positions.Based on this,it is necessary and urgent to deeply study the theoretical proposition of official inaction.This thesis will conduct a rational exploration based on political theory,referencing other theories such as behavior and psychology.It uses methods such as literature research and theoretical deduction,case analysis,behavioral,institutional and ecological analysis to conduct the study according to the vertical logic of “theoretical perspective →theoretical interpretation → theoretical application”.Based on the theoretical model of "power-responsibility-behavior",it conducts theoretical analysis and proposes governance strategies from three levels: reality state,generation mechanism and governance logic.The main body of the thesis is divided into five parts,which will be structured in a "deduction and summary" manner.Chapter 1 mainly explains relevant concepts and theoretical foundations,and constructs an analysis framework.Chapter 2,3,and 4,according to the framework setting,conduct in-depth theoretical discussions and dialogues step by step to provide theoretical explanations of the reality state,generation mechanism and governance logic of the "official inaction" problem.After completing the theoretical construction,Chapter 5 proposes governance strategies and solutions to achieve theoretical application,aiming at solving the "official inaction" problem.The starting point of research is to clarify the concept and connotation of official inaction from the perspective of power,responsibility,and behavioral relationships.Official inaction refers to the failure of officials to effectively exercise their power or fully fulfill their responsibilities as required.The implementation of responsible politics requires the completion of the responsible subject.Official action is the required state from the perspective of responsible politics.The essence of official inaction is the distortion of the relationship between power and responsibility,which reflects the imbalance of this relationship in the area of responsible politics.Chinese officials often have intertwined identities as "party members" and "public officials",and the organizations and institutions of committees and governments at all levels are interrelated.The allocation of power and responsibility is the fundamental guarantee for the standardized and orderly operation of power within party and government organizations.The imbalance between power and responsibility is reflected in the symbolic exercise of power,selective implementation of responsibilities,and avoidance of responsibilities and obligations.Through case sifting and analysis,the reality state of official inaction is examined from three dimensions: power,responsibility,and behavior.Starting from the fulfillment of responsibilities,official inaction can be divided into four forms:“cannot do”,“dare not do”,“do not want to do”,and "slowly do".Through the analysis of the samples,it can be found that the phenomenon of official inaction mainly has the characteristics of crypticity,grassroots,contagiousness,and ambiguity.It has a negative impact,which will shake the legitimacy of the ruling party,reduce the credibility of the party and government,and even dissipate the motivation for most cadres.The generation mechanism of official inaction can be analyzed from four aspects:behavioral cost,behavioral opportunity generation,behavioral motivation,and political ecology.If the benefits of official inaction are higher than its costs,then officials will "dare" do nothing.If the internal system of the political organization is not perfect,the operation mechanism is not regulated,the power supervision and restriction is not strong,the accountability system is not developed,and the officials assessment and evaluation mechanism is not complete,losing the proper functions of supervision,control or correction of deviations,it will be difficult to effectively regulate the rights and responsibilities of officials and their behaviors,which provides the objective opportunities for them to "be able to" not do.If the officials sense of responsibility weakens,they are motivated by power,benefits,security,and other factors to "want" to do nothing.These three steps are closely interrelated,jointly promoting officials’ choice of inaction behavior.Besides,the organization,system,and social environment also have an impact on their choices as a catalytic factor for their inaction.In the area of responsible politics,the governance of official inaction needs to be combined with the actual situation.Based on the generation mechanism,this thesis explores the governance logic of official inaction from four aspects: the determination,fulfillment,accountability,and reshaping of the responsibility.The logical premise and foundation for determining the responsibility is to clarify the relationship between power and responsibility,the power officials hold,the responsibilities they should bear,and what they should and should not do.Fulfilling responsibilities refers to strengthening education and training to enhance internal motivation and abilities.Through ideological guidance,belief education,responsibility education,and personal ability enhancement and so on,the motivation of officials to fulfill responsibilities is enhanced,and the internal factors of official inaction are eliminated.Accountability refers to improving institutional constraints to ensure the implementation of responsibilities.It is necessary to establish a complete operational mode of "power supervision system-legal and regulatory system-optimized accountability mechanism",then constructing a full chain accountability guarantee mechanism for officials to “dare to do,can do,and want to do”.Reshaping refers to optimizing the political ecology to enhance the shaping function of the environment.By improving the political ecology,organizational environment,etc.,organizations can reshape individuals and strengthen the governance effectiveness of determination,fulfillment,accountability.In response to the reality state,generation mechanism and governance logic of official inaction,this thesis explores the countermeasures for the governance of official inaction around “responsibility determination,responsibility fulfillment,accountability mechanism,and environmental construction”.The main focus is to highlight the consistency of power and responsibility,optimize the allocation of power and responsibility,stimulate the internal driving force of officials,strengthen their sense of responsibility,improve the political system of responsibility,consolidate the binding force of the system and create a favorable external environment to assist officials in fulfilling their responsibilities.By proposing such countermeasures and suggestions,the governance logic in theoretical interpretation is echoed,and the theoretical application is completed.