Generative Logic And Path Optimization Of Cross-sectoral Collaboration In Local Governments

Since the 21 st century,social life has become more complex and diversified,and the new challenges of public management and services that keep emerging can no longer be effectively solved by a single entity.Therefore,cross-sectoral collaboration as a new organizational management model has gained rapid development and become an important topic in public management.Although some progress has been made in theories and methods of cross-sectoral collaboration among local governments internationally,and many countries have carried out positive and useful explorations,there are still many difficulties in the practice of cross-sectoral collaboration among local governments in China as a whole,so it is necessary to further study the logic of generating cross-sectoral collaboration among local governments and explore the experience and lessons learned from the practice cases of cross-sectoral collaboration among local governments in China.Therefore,it is necessary to further study the logic of cross-sectoral collaboration in local governments and explore the problems of cross-sectoral collaboration in local governments in China and propose feasible strategies.This paper first defines the concepts of local government,collaboration and cross-sectoral collaboration to avoid confusion.Then,based on the theory of whole government,resource dependency theory and collaborative governance theory,and drawing on the reasonable components of existing collaborative governance analysis models,the paper proposes an analytical framework for cross-sectoral collaboration among local governments,and attempts to systematically outline the logic of cross-sectoral collaboration among local governments in China,with a view to describing,explaining and predicting the development of cross-sectoral practices of local governments in China.With regard to the current cross-sectoral collaboration practices of local governments,this paper will analyze the generation logic of cross-sectoral collaboration of local governments in China in three parts: system environment,motivation of collaboration,and process of collaboration.Among them,the system environment is the supporting environment,which always plays the role of driving or constraining the cross-sectoral collaborative action;the motivation of synergy is the initiator and propeller of the cross-sectoral collaborative action,and the participant will generate the willingness of synergy to promote the collaborative action;the collaborative action is the action process of cross-sectoral collaboration,and whether the synergistic action is smooth or not affects the quality and effect of the cross-sectoral collaborative action.Based on the above-mentioned research,the successful experience of interdepartmental collaboration in poverty eradication in county L and the failed experience of interdepartmental collaboration in pension supervision in city Y are combined to explore the real dilemma of interdepartmental collaboration in local governments in China and propose optimization strategies,with a view to providing reference for the interdepartmental collaboration practice being carried out by local governments in China or in the future.The case study found that during the initial process of poverty eradication,rural credit unions were generally reluctant to lend to poor households due to their scattered residence and high cost of credit risk information collection,which led to a significant increase in the probability of bad debts of banks,but in County L rural credit unions were willing to lend to poor households and controlled credit risks very well.Its basic logic is that based on the common task of poverty eradication and driven by complementary needs,leadership,and external pressure,the resident cadres provide the rural credit union with credit information of poor households,and the township leading cadres constrain the poor households who take out loans through poverty relief payments to engage in industries such as poverty eradication farming in accordance with the rural credit union’s requirements,generating a cross-sectoral synergy of poor households,township cadres,resident cadres,and rural Credit unions and other cross-sectoral synergies.In contrast,Y city for the pension fraud problem can not realize the synergy with the Civil Affairs Bureau,the Public Security Bureau,the court and other departments due to insufficient synergy dynamics and insufficient system environment support,and the synergy process is not smooth enough.The analysis shows that the problems of cross-departmental collaboration of local governments in China are mainly due to the system environment’s difficulty in providing effective support,the lack of sufficient driving force for collaboration,and the difficulty in smoothly carrying out cross-departmental collaborative actions.From the perspective of system environment,the cultural dimension reflects the tendency of self-interest and lack of trust,the institutional dimension reflects the imperfect system of collaborative linkage,and the technical dimension reflects the inadequate construction of unified digital platform;from the perspective of motivation of collaboration,it can be attributed to the asymmetry of demand,difficulty in reaching common goals,lack of external incentives,and insufficient leadership.Finally,the optimization paths are proposed for the synergy dilemma:cultivating public rationality and forming conceptual support;finding the intersection of interests and establishing common goals;strengthening horizontal incentives and enhancing synergy motivation;establishing platform links and reducing synergy costs;and seeking support from higher levels and enhancing synergy pull.