The Model And Behavior Logic Of Local Government’s Basic Public Service Supply For Migrants

Over the past 40 years of Reform and Opening up,a large number of people have crowded into urban in order to earn more income and upgrades their life.Large-scale population movement is a crucial phenomenon in Chinese economic and social development.The increase of urban migrants has greatly promoted the growth of regional GDP,and also triggered an increasing demand for public services.Chinese original public service system is based on the household registration or Hukou system,which means migrants without Hukou in the city would have no chance to enjoy the urban public service.Migrants are often excluded.Surprisingly,since the beginning of the new century,many local governments have made efforts to provide basic public services for the migrants.In practices,there are differences in various regions.In the process of supply,local governments behaviors have shown us difference.In order to explore the differences of these behaviors and the behavior logic behind those different behaviors,the article will use a multi-case study method to solve this problem.This article will summarize the framework of local government’s basic public service supply behavior for migrants on the basis of the existing research.From the perspectives of bureaucratic structure,external incentives,and society governance,existing researches regard local governments as the "executors" of the upper-level government’s will,the "profit-seekers" with autonomous initiative,and the "coordinators" responding to the demands of social interests.These three roles have shaped the local governments’ behavior for the provision of basic public services for migrants,specifically the scope of service coverage and the means of service supply.At the same time,there are three different behavior logics behind these three roles:when the local government acts as the "executor",its goal is to complete the assessment and perform well,thus showing the logic of task completion;when the local government acts as a " profit-seekers ",it pursues the maximization of government financial revenue or the career promotion of officials;when local governments act as the "coordinator" of social interests,their core function is to achieve social governance,and the bottom line is to maintain stability in the region.This article chooses the compulsory education as the example.Through a deep and clear description of the reality of nine cities in Guangdong Province,this article explores the different models and behavior logic of public education provided by local governments.Compulsory education is one of the important contents of basic public services.The link between compulsory education resources and household registration status makes it extremely difficult for immigrant children to obtain public education services in the inflowing place,which has led to social problems such as children dropping out of school and children leaving in the rural area.Since 2001,China has responded to this issue in the "Decision on the Reform and Development of Basic Education".Under the guidance of the above outline documents,local governments have explored different policy designs based on their own actual conditions.The Pearl River Delta region has explored and formed two major policy tools for solving the compulsory education problem,including points-based enrollment and service purchase from private schoole.Based on service coverage and service supply methods,this article divides the supply models in the Pearl River Delta into four types:inclusive supply,traditional supply,overall developmental supply and selective developmental supply.Combining with the specific practices of the Pearl River Delta cities,we analyze the behavior logic differences behind the different supply modes,and the final conclusion as followed:Inclusive supply has not yet been realized in the Pearl River Delta region,and traditional supply is mainly affected by the logic of the executor of the task completion;overall developmental supply is mainly affected by the logic of profit-seekers that optimize revenues;selective developmental supply is dominated by the logic of coordinators that maintain society stability.In the future,how to better promote the provision of public services by local governments to the migrants can extract valuable practical enlightenment from the policy arrangements of cities in the Pearl River Delta,and move forward in the direction of building a service-oriented government.