Research On The Relationship Between Government And Industry Associations In The Post-decoupling Era

Industry associations is a type of important actors of social governance and the major target to whom the government to transfer its some public function,therefore it is critical to identify the boundary and define the relationship between government and industry associations.The Third Plenary Session of the 18 th Central Committee start the“decoupling”(tuo gou)reform of industry associations,which required the government department to stop interfering the internal affairs of industry associations in such as personnel,assets,and finance.As of April 2018,the pilot program for decoupling of national industry associations was basically completed.A total of 428 national industry associations in the three batches of pilots submitted decoupling implementation plans,and 388 of them had been decoupled from their sponsoring government departments,meaning that industry associations in China are coming to the post-decoupling era.In the new era,the government needs to establish new types of cooperative relations with industry associations in order to enable industry associations to fully play the role of social management and promote the development of industrial economy.There are several main points of view about the relationship between government and industry associations in the mainstream literature,including“Dependency relationship”,“Bridage relationship” and “independent relationship”.However,these views have certain limitations on explaining the relationship between the government and industry associations after the decoupling reform.Based on the analysis of the new features of industry associations after the decoupling reform,this paper proposes a new analytical framework for the relationship between government and industry associations.Taking the Shenzhen Futian Enterprise Development Service Center as an example,this paper starts with the integrated policies and measures to support the development of industry associations,analyzes the interactionprocess between the two parties,and found that government departments began to emphasize the institutionalized support system for industry associations and adopt the strategy of supporting without intervention.This market-oriented cooperative relationship between government and industry associations has three distinct characteristics: industry associations operate independently and autonomously according to law;The government adopts the market logic of “paying for the best”rather than the “all pick-up”;The relationship between the government and industry associations is “ mutual dependency ” : the government is an important resource supplier for industry associations,while the industry associations are the“amplifiers”,“ sensors ” and “ balances ” of the government,which are important for the government to implement industrial policies and promote industrial development.Furthermore,this paper compared the differences between the exiting types of government-associations relationships in mainstream studies and the new one proposed in this paper,by analyzing the degree to which government involving in industry associations and the functional position of industry associations.Finally,this paper analyzed the applicable boundaries and conditions of the new type of relationship: The market economy is highly developed,the industry associations have been fully developed,and the omnipotent government is turning to a limited government.