Effectiveness Analysis Of Accountability For Public Health Emergencies In China

In the fight against COVID-19,in order to deal with the problem of dereliction of duty and mobilize leading cadres to fulfill their responsibilities for epidemic prevention and control,the Party and government have promptly carried out accountability work to strengthen supervision and inspection.In terms of governance outcomes,accountability tool has played a positive role in enhancing the effectiveness of crisis governance.Therefore,this paper aims to analyse why accountability tool is effective in the governance of public health emergencies in China based on the overview of accountability in COVID-19.On the basis of the clarification of the accountability system,this paper uses factor analysis,binary logistic regression and case analysis to analyze the cases of epidemic accountability.Firstly,this paper summarizes the charisteristics of accountability based on public reports.A total of 419 cases involving 1203 accountability objects were collected through the Internet.The results of the statistical analysis show that from the perspective of time dimension,accountability is transformed between “accountability storm” and normalized accountability.In terms of accountability subjects,the accountability of the epidemic is mainly internal accountability and top-down accountability.The accountability objects are concentrated in grassroots cadres and public officials.The reasons for accountability focus on poor performance of duties and slow actions.Accountability outcomes balance flexibility and fairness.And the health sector faces a more severe accountability situation.Secondly,The analysis of public accountability cases shows that,in addition to the traditional accountability method of reporting,citizens rely on the network channel to transform their demands for accountability into official accountability through the path of network exposure-increased attention and participation-media intervention-increased accountability pressure-official intervention-launch the investigation-release accountability results.Based on the above analysis,the reason why accountability for public health emergencies in China can be effective is that accountability tool influences governance effectiveness in three ways.First,the principle of “equal accountability between the Party and the government” has been adopted,with inner-party accountability and administrative accountability working together to push governance subjects to fulfill their responsibilities.Second,accountability effectively connects decision-making and implementation to reduce information asymmetry,thereby improving the efficiency and scientificity of governance process.Third,accountability gives full play to the functions of punishment,mobilization and response,motivating party and governmental cadres to act positively and enhancing people’s sense of trust,so as to achieve collaborative governance to promote the realization of crisis governance goals.Moreover,the reasons for the effectiveness of accountability are not limited to the operational level.The political system and the perception of responsibility are the underlying reasons.Based on the comparison of accountability between China and the West,it can be found that Chinese principal-agent relationships and the understanding of official responsibility are key foundations for the effectiveness of accountability tool in public health emergencies.Although accountability plays a positive role in the fight against COVID-19,there are still some problems in the current accountability system for public health emergencies in China,such as imperfect institutional system,lack of external accountability and unbalanced accountability pressure,which weakens the effectiveness of accountability.Therefore,it is necessary to further improve the accountability system,strengthen the external accountability represented by citizens and media,enhance the precision of accountability to balance accountability pressures,and promote the normalization of supervision and inspection.The effectiveness of accountability tool will be further enhanced through the above measures.