External Government Performance Evaluation in China: Evaluating the Evaluations

ABSTRACT

Since the early 2000s, external government performance evaluation (EGPE) activities have been burgeoning in China as an important venue to enhance government’s external accountability, but there have been few studies of this important phenomenon. We bridge the gap by examining the emergence and development of EGPE in China and evaluating its performance. We find that EGPE in China is generally of satisfactory quality but has some serious problems. It needs to improve its independence, validity, and reliability. One way to enhance its quality, credibility, and functionality would be by releasing raw data to the public for verification and duplication. Although EGPE is a necessary and promising tool to promote external government accountability, systematic political and administrative reforms will be required to ensure an effective performance management system that does not only serve hierarchical control and internal accountability but also external and democratic accountability.

KEYWORDS:

• China
• external performance evaluation
• government performance measurement
• public administrative reform

Acknowledgments

Earlier versions of this article were presented at the 2013 Lien Conference on Public Administration held at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and the Second International Conference on Social Policy and Governance Innovation: Policy Learning and Policy Transfer in Asia, held at the Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong. The authors would like to thank Professor Wei Wu, Baogang He, Kaifeng Yang, conference participants, and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and revision suggestions. The authors’ appreciation also goes to the Lien Foundation in Singapore for its generous financial support for the Lien Chinese Service-Oriented Government Program.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Wenxuan Yu

Wenxuan Yu is an assistant professor of public administration in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He received his doctorate in public administration from Rutgers University–Newark. His research interests include public sector performance management, government transparency, citizen participation, e-government, comparative public administration, and public affairs education.

Liang Ma

Liang Ma is a research fellow at the Nanyang Center for Public Administration at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is also a research fellow at the Center for Performance Management, Xi’an Jiaotong University, China. His research interests include urban management and governance, performance measurement and management, public organizational innovation, and public service delivery.