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Abstract
This article compares government transparency and public participation in policymaking across China and the United States. The analysis specifically focuses on the notice and comment process—government announcement of proposed policies and solicitation of public feedback—at the Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOC) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The MOC and EPA are leading organizations in the implementation of such consultation in their respective countries. Information is collected and coded for hundreds of draft regulations and thousands of public comments that occurred during the 2002–2016 period. Statistical analysis of levels of, and variation in, transparency and participation demonstrates both similarities and differences in the operation of the notice and comment process at the MOC and EPA. Transparency and participation are generally lower at the MOC than in EPA consultations. Within such constraints, however, there is evidence of standardization in the administration of consultation by the MOC. These findings suggest that differences in the Chinese and U.S. political systems, rather than issues of administrative capacity, are the primary limitations of consultation as a policymaking innovation in contemporary China.
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the insights of Jerry Ellig and anonymous reviewers, research assistance of Julie Balla, and financial support of the George Washington University Confucius Institute and Regulatory Studies Center.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 These announcements are accessible at http://tfs.mofcom.gov.cn/article/as/201601/20160101227922.shtml and https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2016-05-31/pdf/2016-12369.pdf, respectively.
2 Horsley, “Public Participation in the People’s Republic,” https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/documents/pdf/Intellectual_Life/CL-PPPP_in_the__PRC_FINAL_91609.pdf; Kerwin and Furlong, Rulemaking.
3 Kui, “Participatory Rulemaking in China,” https://www.theregreview.org/2018/04/09/shen-participatory-rulemaking-china/
4 Horsley, “China Implements More Participatory Rulemaking,” https://www.theregreview.org/2018/03/15/horsley-china-implements-participatoryrulemaking/
5 Xinhua News Agency, “China’s State Council,” http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-02/22/content_6477918.htm
6 Balla, “Is Consultation the ‘New Normal?’,” 375–392.
7 Ford, “Is China Opening Up?,” http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2012/0305/Is-China-opening-up
8 Balla and Xie. “Online Consultation and the Institutionalization of Transparency and Participation.”
9 US-China Business Council, “China 2015 Regulatory Transparency Scorecard,” https://www.uschina.org/reports/china-2015-regulatory-transparency-scorecard
10 See note 6 above.
11 Kerwin and Furlong, Rulemaking.
12 “Welcome to the eRulemaking Initiative,” https://www.fdms.gov/fdms/public/aboutus
13 See note 6 above.
14 Stromseth, Malesky, and Gueorguiev, China’s Governance Puzzle, 166.
15 Horsley, “Public Participation in the People’s Republic,” https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/documents/pdf/Intellectual_Life/CL-PPPP_in_the__PRC_FINAL_91609.pdf
16 China’s WTO accession commitments are accessible at http://acdb.wto.org/tabs.aspx
17 United States Trade Representative, “2015 Report to Congress,” https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/2015-Report-to-Congress-China-WTO-Compliance.pdf
18 See note 7 above; Kornreich, “Authoritarian Responsiveness,” 547–564; Shulman, “An Experiment in Digital Government,” 253–265.
19 See note 3 above.
20 Fung, “Varieties of Participation,” 6–75; Fung, “Continuous Institutional Innovation,” 609–624; Johnson and Gastil, “Varieties of Institutional Design,” 2.
21 Chen and Xu. “Why Do Authoritarian Regimes,” 792–803; Dickson, The Dictator’s Dilemma.
22 Dickson, Shen, and Yan, “Generating Regime Support,” 123–155; He, “Local Government Innovation,” 1–19; Saich, “Citizens’ Perceptions of Governance,” 1–28.
23 Truex, “Consultative Authoritarianism and Its Limits” 329–361.
24 See note 7 above.
25 Kornreich, “Authoritarian Responsiveness,” 547–564; Kornreich, Yoel, Ilan Vertinsky, and Pitman B. Potter. “Consultation and Deliberation in China,” 176–203.
26 Balla, “Information Technology, Political Participation,” 655–673.
27 Balla and Liao, “Online Consultation and Citizen Feedback,” 101–120.
28 See note 6 above.
29 See note 8 above.
30 See note 14 above, 241.
31 See note 14 above, 192–242.
32 Duckett and Wang, “Extending Political Participation,” 263–276.
33 Balla, Deets, and Maltzman, “Outside Communications and OIRA,” 149–177.
34 McGarity, “Some Thoughts on ‘Deossifying’,” 1385–1462.
35 Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, 435 U.S. 519, 553 (1978).
36 Hamilton and Schroeder, “Strategic Regulators,” 111–160; Spence, “Managing Delegation Ex Ante,” 413–459.
37 The text of the APA is accessible at https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/jmd/legacy/2014/05/01/act-pl79-404.pdf
38 General Accounting Office, “Federal Rulemaking Agencies,” https://www.gao.gov/assets/230/226214.pdf
39 Lipton and Davenport, “Critics Hear E.P.A.’s Voice,” https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/19/us/critics-hear-epas-voice-in-public-comments.html
40 Balla et al., “Where’s the Spam?,” 460–479.
41 McCarty, Poole, and Rosenthal, Polarized America.
42 Dudley and Brito, Regulation: A Primer, https://www.mercatus.org/system/files/RegulatoryPrimer_DudleyBrito_0.pdf
43 Levin, “The Administrative Law,” 315–348.
44 Heilmann, “Policy Experimentation,” 1–26; Ye, “Regional Government and Governance,” S116–S121.
45 Teets, “Policy Diffusion in China,” 88–106.
46 Berry and Berry, “State Lottery Adoptions,” 395–415.
47 Lowi, The End of Liberalism.
48 Lieberthal and Oksenberg, Policy Making in China.
49 Kostka and Mol. “Implementation and Participation,” 3–16; Mertha, “‘Fragmented Authoritarianism 2.0’,” 995–1012; Zhu and Chertow, “Authoritarian but Responsive,” 384–404.
50 Chen, Cooper, and Sun, “Spontaneous or Constructed?,” S108–S115; Huerlin, Responsive Authoritarianism in China.
51 Zhao and Peters, “The State of the State,” S122–S128.
52 Milward and Provan, “Governing the Hollow State,” 359–380.
53 Seifert and Chung, “Using E-Government,” 3–23.
54 See note 22 above.
55 See note 49 above.
56 See note 44 above.
57 Lubbers, A Guide to Federal Agency Rulemaking, 297.
58 The manner in which professional expertise and sentiment are operationalized is discussed below.
59 He, “Deliberative Participatory Budgeting,” 144–153; See note 14 above.
60 This section is accessible at http://www.mofcom.gov.cn/article/au/
61 MacKinnon, Consent of the Networked.
62 This charge was articulated in 1993 in Executive Order 12866.
63 Information about White House regulatory review is available at https://www.reginfo.gov/public/. The Federal Register (https://www.federalregister.gov/) is the daily journal of the United States federal government.
64 This comment is accessible at https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=EPA-HQ-OAR-2016-0202-0068
65 See note 8 above, 11.
66 For professional experience, Cohen’s kappa is .76, well within the .61-.80 range of substantial agreement. This statistic is .58 for sentiment, on the high end of the .41-.60 category of moderate agreement (Cohen, “Coefficient of Agreement,” 37–46; Landis and Koch, “Application of Hierarchical Kappa-type Statistics,” 363–374).
67 Assuming a ratio of 1,000 English words to 1,600 Chinese characters (http://www.tianhengtranslations.com/word_count.htm), the average EPA proposed rule contains 78,871 characters. Analysis of the length of draft regulations and length of comments is conducted with EPA proposed rules and comments measured both in words and characters. The results are robust across operationalizations.
68 See note 4 above.
69 This expectation is articulated in Executive Order 12866, which is accessible at https://www.archives.gov/files/federal-register/executive-orders/pdf/12866.pdf
70 See note 8 above.
71 These subsets were examined for all analyses. Unless otherwise noted, the results are robust across time and departmental contexts.
72 The averages compared in Table 1 exclude draft regulations with no available feedback.
73 This average is equivalent to 8,242 Chinese characters.
74 See note 27 above; See note 7 above.
75 The EPA does not list each and every submission in mass comment campaigns on regulations.gov, but rather posts a single illustrative submission. As a result, mass comment campaigns are underrepresented in the analysis, relative to the prevalence of campaigns in EPA rulemaking.
76 See note 39 above.
77 Derrick et al., “Test for Equality,” 36–47.
78 When the analysis is restricted to consultations occurring in 2012 or later, variance in the length of MOC draft regulations is statistically larger than EPA variance.
79 Given that EPA feedback consists of a sample of comments, the robustness of the professional experience and sentiment results were examined with alternative analysis. EPA consultations with fewer than five sampled comments were excluded, on the argument that such small samples might not be representative of the feedback received on these proposed rules. The results are unaffected by this restriction.
80 Chen, Cooper, and Sun. “Spontaneous or Constructed?,” S108–S115; Mertha, “‘Fragmented Authoritarianism 2.0’,” 995–1012.
81 Hildebrandt, “The Political Economy,” 970–989.
82 See note 27 above.
83 See note 15 above.
84 Balla et al., “Lost in the Flood?”.
85 Dudley and Wegrich, “Achieving Regulatory Policy Objectives,” https://regulatorystudies.columbian.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs1866/f/downloads/Dudley%20Wegrich_US-EU_RegOverview_20150506_Rev.pdf
86 Palma, “Inequalities in Public Participation,” https://www.academia.edu/28679877/Inequalities_in_Public_Participation_and_the_Role_of_Public_Administration_the_Brazilian_Case_Introduction_the_long_path_for_democratization_in_Brazil
87 See note 7 above; Kornreich, “Authoritarian Responsiveness,” 547–564.
88 See note 27 above.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Steven J. Balla
Steven J. Balla is Associate Professor of Political Science, Public Policy and Public Administration, and International Affairs at The George Washington University, and a senior scholar at the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center.
Zhoudan Xie
Zhoudan Xie is a policy analyst at the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center.