| For a long time,formalism has become a serious obstacle to the process of national governance and modernization,leading to a direct,widespread and deeper erosion of the government’s authority and credibility,and a direct,widespread and deeper damage to the people’s well-being,sense of access and security.Since the 19 th National Congress,the central government has introduced a number of regulations to rectify formalism and bureaucracy.However,it is undeniable that formalism has presented some new manifestations and variants in county governance.In view of the long-term,complex and arduous nature of the governance of formalism,we need to re-examine the logical starting point,theoretical application,analytical framework and deconstruction process in the traditional studies of formalism,and continuously optimize the governance path to achieve more efficient results.Based on organization theory,hierarchy theory,and principal-agent theory,this study analyzes the characteristics of county-level government organizations in three dimensions: inter-organizational relations,internal organization,and external environment,and then builds a "system-technology-field" model.-This study analyzes the logic behind the formalism of county-level government through the framework of "technology-field".In particular,this study analyzed through questionnaires and found that there are filtering,merit-seeking,inspection-approving,trace-keeping,and fingertip formalism in county governments,which are contradictory,diverse,persistent,and hidden.Meanwhile,the author collects publicly available data and information through semi-structured interviews with cadres of county-level government agencies to further analyze the manifestation of formalism and its causes.The study reveals that county-level government departments are influenced by the triple factors of multiple pressures in institutional change,the tendency of technical governance under instrumental rationality,and the county political ecology and social context,presenting a behavioral logic of blame avoidance,technology,and field.Under the inter-organizational relationship dimension,with cascading tasks,multiple assessments,and strong accountability,county governments both directly convey the tasks of their superiors and reach consensus with grassroots organizations to share responsibilities and risks in order to relieve pressure.Under the dimension of internal organizational characteristics,the value leadership of instrumental rationality and the rational choice of individual officials make county governments choose the behavioral strategy of trace management,which leads to policy suspension.Under the influence of political ecology and public opinion pressure,cadres of county-level government agencies uphold a no-accident attitude,lazy administration and inaction,while neglecting to respond to people’s needs.The weak synergy among the subjects of grassroots governance has to some extent exacerbated the loss of trust between the government and the people and reduced the people’s sense of access.This paper proposes the optimization path of China’s county-level government work from three aspects: rationalizing the institutional mechanism of government management,strengthening value rationality,and improving the communication mechanism between the government and the people.From the top-down path,it is important to consider the ability of county governments to absorb a large amount of transactional work and to develop a flexible assessment system that provides more practical incentives and measures.It is also important to reshape value rationality within the organization and adopt flexible governance.From the bottom-up path,the problem of governance de-embedding needs to be addressed,and the mechanism for expressing public service demands needs to be emphasized and improved,with a view to achieving interdependence between county governments and grassroots organizations,and providing accurate,relevant,and efficient public services to the public. |
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