Multiple mechanisms of policy diffusion in China

ABSTRACT

An increased interest in policy diffusion research on China has emerged in recent years. However, the multiple diffusion mechanisms in China have not been explored adequately. In this research, we employ the directed dyadic event history analysis, a new approach introduced into recent policy diffusion research, to examine the diffusion of China’s provincial level administrative licencing centres from 1999 to 2015. Our research provides consistent evidence that horizontal learning, imitation, and the vertical top-down diffusion mechanisms can coexist in China, which provides substantial empirical support for the application of policy diffusion theory in non-western countries.

KEYWORDS:

• Policy diffusion
• dyadic analysis
• China

Acknowledgments

The earlier versions of this article were presented at seminars and workshops organized by the Chinese Academy of Science, Xi'an Jiao Tong University, Shanghai University of Finance Economics, Renmin University of China, Beijing Normal University, Academia Sinica, National University of Singapore, and the International Comparative Policy Analysis Forum. An earlier version of this paper also received the Naschold Award for Excellence in Scholarship in Public Management at the 2017 Annual Conference of the International Public Management Network. We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers' helpful feedbacks. All errors remain our own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Sixteenth Party Congress Report. Retrieved from http://language.chinadaily.com.cn/news/2013-11/26/content_17132209.htm; Seventeenth Party Congress Report. Retrieved from http://language.chinadaily.com.cn/2007-10/31/content_6218870_2.htm; Eighteenth Party Congress Report. Retrieved from http://language.chinadaily.com.cn/news/2012-11/19/content_15941774.htm.

2. Retrieved from http://finance.sina.com.cn/roll/2016-03-17/doc-ifxqnsty4399968.shtml.

3. This has also become a broadly accepted definition of policy diffusion in recent years (Graham, Shipan, and Volden 2013).

4. Mainland China (excluding Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, which are not under the direct control of Chinese Communist Party) has a unitary administrative system with five tiers of government organizations, including the unique central government, 31 provincial level governments, nearly 300 prefecture-level city governments, around 3,000 county-level government, and over 40,000 town-level governments (Ma 2013). Note that all the governments below the central level are viewed as the local governments in China.

5. The missing information in catering industry leads to an additional loss of 266 observations in the sample. However, dropping the economic similarity measure does not change the signs and statistical significance of other coefficient estimates in the models. Therefore, we choose to include this variable in the model to avoid a potential omitted variable bias at the cost of a smaller sample.

6. The central government initiated its reform of the administrative licencing system in 2001, 2 years after the establishment of the first provincial level ALC in 1999. Note that the central policies never formally coerced the provincial governments to create ALCs.

7. Many city-level ALCs were established earlier than the creation of provincial level ALCs (Zhu and Zhang 2016). For instance, Jiangmen city of Guangdong province created the first city-level ALC of China in 1997, while Guangdong province built its provincial level ALC in 2012.

8. This could also help avoid potential reverse causation problems between the dependent variable and the independent variables.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Innovative Research Group Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 71721002] and National Funds for Distinguished Young Scientists of China [grant number 71625006].

Notes on contributors

Youlang Zhang

Youlang Zhang is a PhD candidate at the Department of Political Science, Texas A&M University. His research interests are intergovernmental relations, bureaucracy, and citizen co-production. His recent research is published or forthcoming in Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Policy Studies Journal, and International Public Management Journal.

Xufeng Zhu

Xufeng Zhu is Professor and Associate Dean at the School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University, China. His major research interests cover the policy process, think tanks, and public governance. He is the author of The Rise of Think Tanks in China (Routledge, 2013). His recent publications include articles in Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Governance, Public Administration, Policy Studies Journal, The China Quarterly, Policy Sciences, Public Management Review, and so on.