Frontline information disclosure and street-level bureaucrats’ willingness to follow the rules: evidence from local regulatory agencies in China

Abstract

Frontline information disclosure refers to the endeavor to make the information of interactions between frontline officials and their clients available to policy stakeholders. This study proposes two sets of competing hypotheses to examine the relationship between frontline information disclosure and the willingness of street-level bureaucrats to follow the rules: facilitation effect and inhibition effect hypotheses. The facilitation effect assumes that frontline information disclosure may increase street-level bureaucrats’ willingness to follow the rules, while the inhibition effect expects bureaucrats will be reluctant to follow the rules under circumstances where more frontline information can be disclosed. These hypotheses are tested using data from a survey of 133 managers and 1,610 Chengguan officials in local regulatory agencies from 24 cities in China. Our statistical analyses consistently show that street-level bureaucrats who are exposed to a higher level of objective information disclosure or perceive a higher level of subjective information disclosure are more willing to follow the rules during regulatory enforcement. This finding supports facilitation effect hypotheses. The key implications of our research are discussed in the conclusion.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no declarations of interest.

Notes

1 On May 1st, 2017, the Chinese central government officially promulgated a regulation that requires the Chengguan officials to wear body cameras to record the law enforcement process. The Urban Management and Law Enforcement Agency (UMLEA) is responsible for the guidance and supervision of this new regulation across the country and all city-level governments should abide by the regulation. Therefore, since a national law on information disclosure was imposed on local governments, we assume that there are no systematic differences across different regions.

2 WeChat is a messaging, social media, and mobile payment app in China, and is similar to WhatsApp.

Additional information

Funding

National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 71974057); Shanghai Planning Office of Philosophy and Social Science (Grant No. 2020EGL015).

Notes on contributors

Fan Yang

Fan Yang, PhD, is Associate Professor at the School of Political Science and Public Administration, East China University of Political Science and Law. His research interests encompass street-level bureaucracy and emergency management. His recent publications have appeared in Public Management Review, American Review of Public Administration, Social Science in China.

Zhichao Li

Zhichao Li, is Professor at the School of Political Science and Public Administration, East China University of Political Science and Law. His research interests encompass public administration and public policy. His recent publications have appeared or are forthcoming in Journal of Public Management, Public Management Review, and International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

Xiaoxia Huang

Xiaoxia Huang, is a Ph.D. student in political science at Syracuse University. Her research interests center on comparative politics and international relations with a focus on China.