Table of Content

17 March 2025, Volume 14 Issue 2

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Consistency or Countermeasures？—Local Government Policy Adaptation in China’s Blue Sky Protection Campaign

LI Yanhao, WANG Jianhui, XU Manchi, ZHANG Qin, SU Jun

2025, 14(2):  4. 

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Innovation Break: The Mechanism of "Pseudo Innovation" from the Perspective of Innovation Process: Taking the Innovation of L District Community Council as a Case Study

WANG Han, ZHU Jiangang

2025, 14(2):  26. 

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At present, there is a dilemma of frequent occurrence of pseudo innovation in grassroots governance innovation, and clarifying the mechanism of pseudo innovation is the key to breaking through the situation. The article focuses on grassroots governance innovation under the type of block and block pairing, taking the governance innovation of L district community residents meeting as a case study, and demonstrating the mechanism of "pseudo innovation" through document archives and interview data. The occurrence of "pseudo innovation" is often a product of the combination of several stage deviations. The mechanism chain of "institutional environment - Tiao-kuai organization - innovation entrepreneur - innovation strategy" exhibits dynamic differences at different stages of the innovation process. The innovation fracture path demonstrates how grassroots governance innovation has transformed from true innovation to pseudo innovation: even though grassroots governance innovation can avoid stage deviations in the early stage, key node events lead to changes in the mechanism of innovation strategy action, resulting in the emergence of stage deviations. The innovative break mechanism integrates process factors and structural factors, which helps to promote the development of innovative theories in grassroots governance.

Change and Stability: Differentiated Adaptation of Policy Systems Triggered by Crisis Events: Textual Analysis of Provincial Environmental Policies Based on Machine Learning

LIAO Yanzhu, MO Guifang

2025, 14(2):  39. 

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Policy adjustment in crisis situations involves multidimensional changes in policy system elements.Previous studies have tended to focus on the overall relationship between crises and policy trends, neglecting to observe the fluctuations of policy system elements triggered by crises.This study draws on policy paradigm theory to extract observational elements, selecting environmental emergencies occurring between 2011 and 2020 for empirical research. Utilizing web crawlers to assemble a database of provincial ecological and environmental department policies, and employing supervised machine learning algorithms for automated coding, the study comparing the adjustments of policy system elements between normal and crisis periods based on statistical results. The results demonstrate that crisis events propel more substantial modifications in policy scale and instruments compared to normal conditions, with the magnitude of adjustments escalating in accordance with the severity of the crisis events. Nevertheless, policy objective adaptations predominantly manifest as dynamic fine-tuning of focal tasks, while crisis events do not incite policy objective adjustments surpassing conventional levels. The non-congruent shifts within the policy system can be encapsulated as "differentiated adaptation," underscoring the persistent tension and sequential metamorphosis between "change" and "stability" in policy systems under crisis circumstances. This offers a theoretical foundation for decoding the practicality of policies in effective risk management, and aids policymakers in focusing on balancing endogenous stability with exogenous conflicts, thereby promoting the maintenance of flexible adaptation and robust operation in policy implementation.

Conceptual Development，Mechanisms of Formation，and Influential Factors

Qian Lei , Yu Siyu , Gong Hongling

2025, 14(2):  55. 

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Policy innovation is crucial for achieving the modernization of national governance capabilities. Existing research，dominated by policy diffusion theory，primarily focuses on the dissemination and adoption of policy innovation，often neglecting the study of government behavior post-policy adoption. In reality，government behavior following the adoption of policy innovation is closely related to the performance of the innovation. The theory of policy reinvention，through the study of policy texts，reveals the mechanisms of government behavior after the adoption of policy innovation. Therefore，the evolution of policy reinvention theory is particularly important for a comprehensive understanding of the policy innovation process. Policy reinvention refers to the process by which a primary-level government refines，updates，or assimilates the prototype policies of higher-level or peer governments and enacts corresponding public policies within its jurisdiction. Most existing studies regard “reinvention” as a stage of “policy diffusion”，resulting in overlaps and intersections in conceptual definitions and process mechanisms. This study argues that policy reinvention is fundamentally different from policy diffusion in terms of process mechanisms. Therefore，this paper clarifies the conceptual connotation of policy reinvention through a comparative analysis of concepts; constructs a comprehensive model of the policy reinvention generation process by reviewing the research on the policy reinvention process; and explains the generation mechanism of policy reinvention by combining the influencing factors of reinvention. The study finds that during the downward diffusion of policies，the tension caused by localization resistance serves as a trigger for reinvention. The core of reinvention is the learning mechanism，where different learning pathways produce four types of knowledge: empathic，conceptual，negotiated，and technical. Factors such as policy dimensions，reinventor dimensions，and environmental dimensions influence the generation and degree of reinvention. Issues such as the effect of time and geographical influence remain controversial. Policy reinvention provides a unique perspective for analyzing local government innovation. Future research can continue to deepen the distinction between policy reinvention and related concepts，exploring the generation mechanisms in different contexts to enrich the theory of policy innovation research.

How Does Government Disposal Media Affect Public Satisfaction?--An Empirical Research Based on 12345 Government Service Platform from a City in China

JIN Huijie, WANG Kanliang, FU Dongpu

2025, 14(2):  69. 

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Effectively handling public appeals is a key component of online government services, and improving the one-to-one interaction process between the government and citizens is particularly crucial for enhancing the citizen appeal experience. As a carrier of communication information, the disposal media adopted by the government is an essential factor that may affect the effectiveness of the government-citizen interaction. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate the effect of disposal media richness on public satisfaction. Drawing on media richness theory, this paper examines the influence of disposal media richness on public satisfaction and its boundary conditions by analyzing the 12345 municipal hotline order data of a city in China. We use the propensity score matching method and ordered logit regression model to identify the effect. The results indicate that the richness of disposal media positively influences public satisfaction. Moreover, this effect is moderated by characteristics of the disposing personnel and the citizen. When the management level of the disposing personnel is higher, and when the channel of appeal is social media platforms (compared to official platforms), this effect is weakened. In contrast, when the emotional valence of the citizen is more positive, this effect is stronger. This study identifies the influencing factors of public satisfaction during interactions between the government and citizens and expands the application scenarios of media richness theory. The paper also provides valuable guidance for government-citizen interaction related policies and their selection of disposal media to enhance public service efficiency.

How Internet Use Affects Hierarchical Political Trust pattern?—Empirical analysis based on CSS2021 data

ZHAN Shaowen, WANG Yizhong, YANG Yi

2025, 14(2):  87. 

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The poorly ordered structure of "strong central government and weak local government" is a typical feature of civic government trust in China. Empirical evidence on whether and how Internet use, as an important way of shaping citizen government trust, affects differential government trust is scarce. Therefore, this paper empirically analyzes the data from the 2021 Comprehensive Survey of Social Conditions in China and finds that, after effectively dealing with endogeneity issues, Internet use strengthens poorly-ordered government trust, which is mainly achieved by increasing central government trust and decreasing local government trust, and the conclusion still holds when we use the robustness test by changing the measurement criteria, the propensity score matching method, and entropy equilibrium method. The results of mechanism analysis show that Internet use significantly reduces local government performance evaluation and weakens authoritarian values, which to some extent validates the explanatory logic of both institutional and cultural paths. The article provides a more effective explanation for the study of the relationship between Internet use and poorly ordered government trust, and offers important policy implications for improving the structure of political trust in the digital age.

Why Does Safety Regulation Fail？A "Scissors Gap" Model：Tracing the Process of The Collapse of A Self-constructed Building in Changsha City, Hunan Province on April 29, 2022

ZHONG Kaibin SHEN Yuqing

2025, 14(2):  101. 

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Safety regulation is one of the important functions of modern government. Since the reform and opening up in 1978, in the process of promoting the construction of a regulatory state, the efforts of Chinese governments at all levels to strengthen safety regulation coexist with the safety regulation quality which is still relatively weak. How to understand the contradiction between the efforts of safety regulation and the weak safety regulation quality? This article constructs a scissors-gap model of regulate quality and risk level to describe the ongoing process of the scissors gap between the supply of safety regulation and the demand for risk governance in the process from routine regulation to campaign-style governance based on the evolution of risk and the adaptability of regulation. The framework regards risk as a dynamic evolution process of accumulation and superposition, and requires the establishment of a suitable dynamic regulatory behavior model. The traditional campaign-style regulation mode can temporarily control risks, but it cannot stably control or reduce risks to a lower level for a long time. There is a scissors gap between the dynamic evolution of risks and regulatory behavior, and various risks and hidden dangers continue to accumulate, which may eventually lead to major accidents when triggered by specific factors. Based on this analytical framework, this article conducted an in-depth case analysis of the "4.29" self-constructed building collapse accident in Changsha, Hunan Province. Using process-tracing methods, the dynamic change of the gap between regulation quality and risk level in the process from routine regulation to campaign-style regulation under the joint action of driving factors, and the process of scissors gap between safety regulation supply and risk management demand forms, have been addressed and verified.

Control and Competition: Quotas Governance Logic and Empirical Testing of Work Safety Target Assessment

WANG Fanfan, GUAN Bing

2025, 14(2):  117. 

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Understanding the operational logic of target assessment is crucial for enhancing work safety practices. Despite the widely recognized effectiveness of work safety target assessments, their operational mechanisms have not been thoroughly explored and lack empirical substantiation. This paper begins with an examination of the foundational principles of target assessment design, proposing that control and competition serve as the explanatory framework for governing the logic behind work safety target assessment quotas. Based on data from work safety quotas across 31 provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities) in mainland China, and complemented by macroeconomic data and individual characteristics of party and government leaders, this study concludes that target assessments structured around quotas control and competition substantially enhance the governance effectiveness of work safety. The interaction between control and competition in quotas management yields a notable substitution effect. The results of heterogeneity analysis indicate that political cycles and officials in critical promotion periods enhance the positive impact of quotas competition on the effectiveness of work safety governance. However, their influence on the relationship between governance control and work safety effectiveness is comparatively limited. Meanwhile, the method of underground coal mining amplifies the beneficial impacts of quotas control and competition on the effectiveness of work safety governance. This paper extends the theoretical framework of target assessment operations through the lens of quotas governance and offers empirical evidence supporting the governance logic of work safety target assessment quotas.

Impact Mechanisms of Low-carbon City Pilot on Urban Sustainable Development from the Perspective of Multi-subject Action

LIU Bingsheng, QUAN Lili, XUE Bin

2025, 14(2):  135. 

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In order to respond to climate change and fulfill international carbon emission reduction commitments, China has carried out a series of low-carbon city pilot projects since 2010. No literature has yet explored the question of whether the pilot low-carbon city policy can enhance the level of sustainable urban development. To this end, based on the panel data of 289 prefectural-level cities in China, this paper uses the low-carbon city pilot policy as a quasi-natural experiment to test the impact on the level of sustainable development. Besides, mechanisms of the process are analyzed from the perspective of multiple subjects and the spatial Durbin model is used to verify the spillover effect of policy implementation. The overall regression results show that the low-carbon city pilot policy could significantly promote the sustainable development level of the city. Further analysis reveals that the green technology innovation and the green living standards play an important role between the low-carbon city pilot policy and the level of urban sustainable development. The strength of government environmental regulation also has a significant positive moderating during this process. In addition, there are positive spatial spillover effects and urban heterogeneity of low-carbon pilot policies. These conclusions provide suggestions for promoting the construction of low-carbon cities and enhancing the level of sustainable urban development.

Governance Through Supervision: The Supervision Mechanism of County Governance and Its Effectiveness: Case Study of T County in Central China#br#

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WU Chunlai

2025, 14(2):  155. 

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Observing the practical shift of national supervision power at the grassroots level from the county level, and exploring the tension between national power supervision and the response of the county system. Based on the case experience of T County, an analysis is conducted around the correlation between county supervision mechanism and governance mechanism. It is found that, on the basis of complying with national supervision discourse, the main functions of county supervision power are expanded, supervision cooperation is embedded, and supervision results are diversified, which is the reconstruction and optimization of the county system on the grassroots supervision system; Relying on institutional authority, the focus of supervision has expanded from the party's discipline and special responsibilities to the central work responsibility of county-level generalization, and highlighted the supervision of power subjects in the process of policy implementation. The practice of supervisory power has been highlighted in the operation of the county-level system, which means that the county-level system has expanded the connotation of grassroots supervisory power while following the national political discourse. By relying on differentiated and integrated supervisory mechanisms, grassroots supervision has become normalized and procedural, and county-level governance has shown a trend of "governance through supervision".