Policy Implementation

October 31, 2011

China is a hierarchical authoritarian political system. Then why does it have severe policy implementation problems?

Economic Reforms Made More Difficult

Less control over individuals Changed incentives of local officials End of CCP rectification campaigns

Selective Policy Implementation

Why some policies and not others? What are incentives facing grass-roots officials? Leadership divided or unified Monitoring problems
One level down appointments Cadre responsibility system Few fire alarms; lack of accountability to citizens Hard vs. soft targets

Officials evaluation and promotion policies strengthen authority of immediate superiors and insulate officials from ordinary citizens.

Strengthening Hierarchical Control

Personnel appointment one level down, so accountable to immediate superior Frequent rotation of cadres No more rectification campaigns Local people have no authority to oversee local cadres rightful resistance to get attention, only elections at village level Citizen oversight no substitute for elections

Cadre Evaluation
Move away from subjective virtuocracy Specific, measurable, quantifiable performance indicators Annual evaluations Measures: Output, per capita income, fiscal remission and income, etc. Only non-economic measures population growth and 9 yr education completion rate

Top-down monitoring method Clash with legal norms (Minzner) Monitoring problems of traditional China Strict liability (vicarious responsibility, sometimes collective) Problem of falsified statistics; limits on direct observation .

Cadre Responsibility System as Tool for Monitoring Local Agents

Chinese reliance on strict, vicarious, and collective liability to govern is not cultural. Rather, it is an institutional response to informational and principal-agent problems Particularly in the context of a large authoritarian bureaucracy which is hesitant or unwilling to permit the development of independent institutional channels to monitor the actions of local officials, numerical responsibility targets tied to strict, collective, and vicarious liability are quite simply core mechanisms which allow the center to exercise some degree of control over their local agents. [But also] incentivizes problematic behavior on the part of local officials.
Minzner, Riots and Coverups, 2009.

 Priority targets with veto power (energy efficiency, family planning, social order) Hard targets (economic) Soft targets (political)

High-Powered Incentives
Compensation tied to performance Incentive pay large portion of total incomes Large income differentials Rise and fall on basis of economic success Needed to prevent defection in market economy, bending toward locals

One-Child Family
Leadership unified Quotas set province on down Farmers sign contract along with grain production contract Creation of Birth Planning Association Campaign mobilization Cant measure use of persuasion,

But what did central leaders intend? What are their real priorities? What is window dressing?

Over-Compliance
Brutal suppression of Falungong in Weifang Intense pressure to prevent protestors in Beijing Provincial govt fined subordinates Proximity (300 miles) for monitoring Weifang police arrest protestors in Beijing 11 died in custory

Environmental Protection
How to get local officials to pay more attention to environmental pollution?

Continued Implementation Failures

Environmental protection Social programs Land as revenue source Control of local agents problematic