Reconceptualizing policy change in China: from soft to harder forms of law in the household registration system reform

Abstract

The conceptualization of policy change has been much discussed in democratic countries with a focus on formal legislation. However, in non-Western contexts, policies change in both formal and informal ways, and these informal mechanisms are challenging to observe. To fill this gap, this article uses the case of China’s policy process, where soft law policies play an increasingly important role in driving policy change. Drawing inspiration from legalization theory in international law, the article creates a novel typology of soft law policies based on dimensions of obligation and enforcement. Next, it compiles and analyzes a unique dataset of soft law policies from the central, provincial, and prefectural governments during the process of Household Registration (Hukou) System reform from 2011 to 2021. The results show that when the central government strengthens the obligation or enforcement dimension of the Hukou reform policy, then provincial and prefectural governments largely follow this policy change. Still, significant variations exist across provinces and prefectures in how they adapt to central policies. The findings highlight the potential of the typology of soft law policies to generate new insights into policy changes across China’s multi-level governance system.

Keywords:

• Policy change
• soft law
• household registration system
• policy implementation

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Jørgen Delman, Elena Meyer-Clement, Mikkel Bunkenborg, Bo Sørensen, and the anonymous reviewers for their useful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, Yi Ma, upon reasonable request.

Notes

1 Cashore and Howlett, “Punctuating Which Equilibrium?”; Green-Pedersen, “The Dependent Variable Problem”; Hall, “Policy Paradigms, Social Learning, and the State”; Howlett and Cashore, “The Dependent Variable Problem”; Kühner, “Country-Level Comparisons”; Šinko, “Policy Change-Review of Classification, Measurement and Factors”.

2 Heilmann, “Policy Experimentation in China’s Economic Rise”; Kim and O’Brien, “Understanding Experimentation and Implementation”; Li, “A Study of Symbolic Policy Implementation”; Li and Weible, “China’s Policy Processes and the Advocacy Coalition Framework”; Ma and Liu, “The Politics of Policy Reformulation”; Mei and Liu, “Experiment-Based Policy Making or Conscious Policy Design?”; Wang, “Principle-Guided Policy Experimentation in China”; Zhu and Zhao, “Experimentalist Governance with Interactive Central–Local Relations.”

3 Abbott et al., “The Concept of Legalization”; Abbott and Snidal, “Hard and Soft Law in International Governance”; Saurugger and Terpan, “Normative Transformations in the European Union”; Terpan, “Soft Law in the European Union.”

4 Wu, “Documentary Politics”.

5 In this study, public policy is understood as “anything a government chooses to do or not to”. See Dye, Understanding public policy, 2. Law is “a regulatory system which reflects public will, and which is formulated or approved by the state, and which relies on public coercion or self-disciplinary mechanisms to ensure its enforcement.” See Luo and Song, Soft Law Governance, 154. “Institutions are the human devised constraints that structure political, economic and social interactions.” See North, “Institutions,” 97. They consist of both informal constrains and formal rules. In this study, the term “law” encompasses a more extensive scope than “public policy,” as it includes not only government public policy, but also other regulatory systems issued by various public organizations that embody public will. However, neither public policy nor law enforces the will of private individuals onto others. On the other hand, institutions are designed to structure human interactions in both public and private spaces. Therefore, in this study, institutions are the broadest concept, encompassing both law and public policy.

6 Luo and Song, Soft Law Governance; Ma, “Soft Law with a Hard Impact in Local China”.

7 Wu, “Documentary Politics”.

8 Cashore and Howlett, “Punctuating Which Equilibrium?”; Hall, “Policy Paradigms, Social Learning, and the State”; Howlett and Cashore, “The Dependent Variable Problem”; Sabatier, “An Advocacy Coalition Framework of Policy Change.”

9 See Chan, “China’s Hukou system at 60”; Chan and Buckingham, “Is China Abolishing the Hukou System”.

10 See Andreas and Zhan, “Hukou and land”; Liu and Shi, “Acquiring a Beijing hukou”; Zhang, “Governing neoliberal authoritarian citizenship”; Zhang et al., “A quantitative analysis of Hukou reform in Chinese cities.”

11 Hall, “Policy Paradigms, Social Learning, and the State”.

12 Ibid., 278.

13 Ibid., 278.

14 Ibid., 279.

15 Ibid, 279.

16 Cashore and Howlett, “Punctuating Which Equilibrium.”

17 Ibid., 536.

18 Howlett and Cashore, “The Dependent Variable Problem”, 38.

19 Sabatier, “An advocacy coalition framework of policy change”; Sabatier, “Policy change over a decade or more.”

20 Sabatier, “An advocacy coalition framework of policy change,” 145.

21 Li and Weible, “China’s Policy Processes and the Advocacy Coalition Framework.”

22 Zhu and Zhao, “Experimentalist Governance with Interactive Central–Local Relations”.

23 Heilmann, “From Local Experiments to National Policy”; Heilmann, “Policy Experimentation in China’s Economic Rise”; Husain, “Policy Experimentation and Innovation”; Kim and O’Brien, “Understanding Experimentation and Implementation”; Wang, “Principle-Guided Policy Experimentation in China.”

24 Mei and Liu, “Experiment-Based Policy Making.”

25 Heilmann, “Policy Experimentation in China’s Economic Rise,” 9.

26 Cheng, “Soft Law in the Prevention and Control”; Luo and Song, Soft Law Governance; Yang, “The Role of CPC Regulations.”

27 Snyder, “The Effectiveness of European Community Law”; Ştefan, “Soft Law and the Enforcement of EU Law.”

28 Cheng, “Soft Law in the Prevention and Control”; Luo and Song, Soft Law Governance; Yang, “The Role of CPC Regulations in Chinese Judicial Decisions.”

29 Heilmann and Perry, “Embracing Uncertainty.”

30 Chen, Dangzheng jiguan gongwen xiezuo chuli; Cheng, Dangzheng jiguan gongwen xiezuo; Lieberthal and Oksenberg, Policy making in China, 151.

31 Ahlers, Rural Policy Implementation in Contemporary China; Chan, “China’s Hukou System at 60”; Wang, “Principle-Guided Policy Experimentation in China”; Xue and Zhao, “Truncated Decision Making and Deliberative Implementation”; Zhu and Zhao, “Experimentalist Governance with Interactive Central–Local Relations.”

32 Horsley, “China’s Central Government Seeks to Rein in Regulatory Documents.” https://www.theregreview.org/2019/05/07/horsley-china-central-government-rein-regulatory-documents/.

33 Note that legally non-binding soft law policies can be politically binding and become very “hard”. For instance, a local government leader failing to comply with a central soft law policy (e.g. a party mandate) may be politically sanctioned, such as being removed from a position.

34 State Council, “Opinions of the State Council on Further Promotion of Reform of the Household Registration System.” http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/content/2014-07/30/content_8944.htm.

35 Cashore and Howlett, “Punctuating Which Equilibrium?”; Howlett and Cashore, “The Dependent Variable Problem”; Sabatier, “An Advocacy Coalition Framework of Policy Change”; Sabatier, “Policy Change over a Decade or More.”

36 Lieberthal and Oksenberg, Policy Making in China; Xue and Zhao, “Truncated Decision Making and Deliberative Implementation”; Zhou, “The Institutional Logic of Collusion.”

37 Li, “A Study of Symbolic Policy Implementation”; Ma and Liu, “The Politics of Policy Reformulation.”

38 Heilmann and Perry, “Embracing Uncertainty.”

39 Xue and Zhao, “Truncated Decision Making and Deliberative Implementation.”

40 Ahlers, Rural Policy Implementation in Contemporary China; Zhou, “The Institutional Logic of Collusion.”

41 Mertha and Brødsgaard, “Introduction”.

42 Li, Rural Tax Reform in China.

43 Manion, “The Behavior of Middlemen.”

44 Abbott et al., “The Concept of Legalization.”

45 Ibid.

46 Ibid., 401.

47 Abbott and Snidal, “Hard and Soft Law in International Governance,” 422.

48 Abbott et al., “The Concept of Legalization,” 406.

49 Abbott and Snidal, “Hard and Soft Law in International Governance,” 422.

50 Terpan, “Soft Law in the European Union.”

51 Ibid., 72.

52 Ibid., 73.

53 Ibid., 73.

54 Note that both Terpan and Abbott et al. distinguish soft law from non-law, which has no obligation and no enforcement (or no precision and no delegation). See Abbott et al., “The Concept of Legalization”; Terpan, “Soft Law in the European Union.”

55 Delman, “Performance Reviews”; Gao, “Governing by Goals and Numbers”; O’Brien and Li, “Selective Policy Implementation in Rural China”; Whiting, “The Cadre Evaluation System at the Grass Roots.”

56 Chung, Centrifugal Empire; Wang, Sun, and Zhang, “Does the Central Environmental Inspection Effectively Improve Air Pollution”; Yeo, “Complementing the Local Discipline.”

57 Delman, “Urban Climate Change Politics in China”; Tsai and Zhou, “Integrated Fragmentation and the Role of Leading Small Groups in Chinese Politics.”

58 Anderson et al., “Non-Governmental Monitoring of Local Governments”; Delman, “Performance Reviews”; Van Rijsoort and Zhang, “Participatory Resource Monitoring.”

59 Cashore and Howlett, “Punctuating Which Equilibrium”; Howlett and Cashore, “The Dependent Variable Problem.”

60 Lindblom, “The Science of ‘Muddling Through.”

61 Cheung, “Introduction.”

62 Chung, “Shandong’s Strategies of Reform in Foreign Economic Relations.”

63 Chan and Zhang, “The Hukou System and Rural-Urban Migration in China.”

64 Chan and Buckingham, “Is China Abolishing the Hukou System.”

65 State Council, “Interim Regulation on Residence Permits.” http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/content/2015-12/12/content_10398.htm.

66 Luo and Song, Soft Law Governance.

67 See Chan and Buckingham, “Is China Abolishing the Hukou System”; Chan and Zhang, “The Hukou System and Rural-Urban Migration in China.”

68 ECNS.cn, “Gonganbu fubuzhang.” http://www.chinanews.com/gn/2012/03-11/3733803.shtml.

69 State Council, “Opinions of the State Council on Further Promotion of Reform of the Household Registration System.” http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/content/2014-07/30/content_8944.htm.

70 Wu, “Decentralization and Hukou Reforms in China.”

71 In this study, in order to increase the sample size and not to overlook important regional governments, observations from sub-provincial cities, such as Dalian, and districts or counties under the four centrally-administered municipalities, were also included at the prefectural level.

72 A few prefectural soft law policies were adapted directly from the three central soft law policies, before the provincial adaptation came out.

73 Survey and Research Center for China Household Finance, “Introducing the Project on Huji Reform and Migration.” https://chfser.swufe.edu.cn/datas/Home/NewsDetail/47.

74 Gao, “Governing by Goals and Numbers”; O’Brien and Li, “Selective Policy Implementation in Rural China.”

75 O’Brien and Li, “Selective Policy Implementation in Rural China.”

76 Chan, “China’s Hukou System at 60”; Chan and Buckingham, “Is China Abolishing the Hukou System.”

77 Ma and Liu, “The Politics of Policy Reformulation.”

78 Chan, “China’s Hukou System at 60”; Chan, “What the 2020 Chinese Census Tells Us About Progress in Hukou Reform.” https://jamestown.org/program/what-the-2020-chinese-census-tells-us-about-progress-in-hukou-reform/; Chan and Buckingham, “Is China Abolishing the Hukou System”; Jaramillo, “China’s Hukou Reform in 2022.” https://www.csis.org/blogs/new-perspectives-asia/chinas-hukou-reform-2022-do-they-mean-it-time-0; Zhang, “China’s Hukou System Reform.”

79 Ma and Liu, “The Politics of Policy Reformulation.”

80 SOHU, “Di qici renkou pucha.” https://www.sohu.com/a/466927717_120927771.

81 Ibid.

82 Anderson et al., “Non-Governmental Monitoring of Local Governments”; Lampton, “The Implementation Problem in Post-Mao China”; Ran, “Perverse Incentive Structure and Policy Implementation Gap”; Xiao and Zhu, “Bureaucratic Control and Strategic Compliance.”

83 Ahlers, “Introduction.”

84 Saurugger and Terpan, “Normative Transformations in the European Union”; Terpan, “Soft Law in the European Union.”

85 Ma, “Improved Soft Law Implementation”; Zeitlin and Vanhercke, “Socializing the European Semester.”

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the S.C. Van Fonden under [Grant 2020-0144].

Notes on contributors

Yi Ma

Yi Ma is a postdoc at the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen. His research interests include policy design and implementation, central-local relations, and soft law governance in China.