Ostrom's Public Governance Theory And It's Inspiration To China's Public Administration Reform

Governance of public sector has always been concerned by the community. With the economic development and social progress, the demand for public goods has increased greatly and diversified obviously. Improvements of public governance both in theory and practice have been required urgently. It is traditional economic theory's advocation that through the "hand of government" or "hand of the market" to solve the public governance problems. In fact, neither the government nor the market can solve this problem perfectly. Elinor Ostrom broken through the detention of traditional economy theory and discovered "the third hand" of public governance on the basis of extensive empirical study. The presentation of public governance theory provides a new view of practical problems.Literature analysis, system analysis, empirical analysis and normative analysis are the main research methods in this paper. The purposes of this paper are as follows:making an objective description of the origin, content,analytical tool of public governance; giving an subjective evaluation of the features, value, limitations of public governance; trying to solve some practical problems in China. Ostrom's public governance theory is reviewed systematically. This paper divides it into three closely tied parts. It analyzes the Institutional Analysis and Development framework, including its contents, variables and applications.Then the characteristics, value and weaknesses of this theory are pointed out.Finally, the writer applies public governance theory to common-pool resource governance, public goods and social management system. The purposes of this paper are to offer some references to the research in this field, attract more scholars to study this field and promote its development and application in China.