Civic Engagement in the Performance Evaluation of the Public Sector in China: Building horizontal accountability to enhance vertical accountability

Abstract

This article accounts for the logic of building of an accountability mechanism with elements of civic engagement in an authoritarian regime. It is elaborated by a performance evaluation programme ‘Democratic Review of Administrative and Business Style’ (DRABS) in Wuhan in central China. The author argues that the DRABS does help form government agencies’ responsiveness to the public with various public scrutiny instruments including mass media and the internet, and that it is more accurate to frame the mechanism as having the function of building horizontal accountability to enhance vertical accountability.

Key words:

• Civic engagement
• performance
• horizontal accountability
• vertical accountability
• China

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This study is sponsored by National Science Council of Taiwan (NSC-100-2420-H-004–019-MY3). I am grateful to two anonymous referees for their helpful comments.

Notes

1. Provisional Regulations of Performance Management in Wuhan [issued on 10 October 2006]; Guideline for Executing Third-party Evaluation under Performance Management [issued on 19 June 2006].

2. About five different ways of administering questionnaires are used: (1) issuance of questionnaires to the people who attend government-organized performance evaluation meetings; (2) issuance to the public in certain specific places; (3) issuance to some specific groups of people; (4) conduct of surveys at randomly selected places; and (5) attachment of questionnaires to newspapers that are delivered to readers. See Xie (2008: 137–9).

3. Interview with an official of the Supervision Bureau in Wuhan (31 August 2011).

4. According to an interview with one of DEWS (31 August 2011), the corps of such party-government leaders numbered up to 100 persons, whereas the group of DEWS numbered no more than 40.

5. Interview with a DEW (31 August 2011).

6. As Note 3.

7. Ibid.

8. As Note 5.

9. See the TV programme at: http://www.whbc.com.cn/rdzt/2010yearzt/zt_hflx2010/

10. See the WSOL at: http://hflx.whjjjc.org.cn/application/main/xzqh.jsp

11. As Note 3.

12. In the government report to the People’s Congress in Wuhan addressed on 13 February 2011, the city government promised to extend the office hours of 14 government service counters. See http://www.wh.gov.cn/frontpage/pubinfo/PubinfoDetail.action?id=1201102211242340001

13. As Note 5. The DEW mentioned a case that the Environmental Protection Bureau (EPB) in Wuhan held data of water quality that was valuable to the Water Supply Bureau (WSB); the EPB was not willing to share the data with the WSB. Under the moderating of the DEWS, a mechanism was set up to share the data with the WSB.

14. Ibid.