Sustaining administrative reform in China through path dependence and creation

: the case of Shunde District, Guangdong Province

Abstract

This study examines the processes sustaining the administrative reform in Chinese local government. Administrative reform is taken as an important way to solve the problems in government administration, but successful reform is rare. It is widely accepted that change is difficult because resistance exists. Since the economic reform started in the 1980s, the Chinese government has launched a series of administrative reforms to adapt to the economic transition. However, reform progress was slow. The existing literature has had abundant discussion on the driving forces, principles and implementation of the reforms. Despite apparent consensus of the need for administrative reform and its guiding principles, implementation of reform has been difficult. Many studies argue that the biggest obstacle for reform is the resistance from the bureaucrats who have vested interests. Against this background, most studies propose that the reformers should work to overwhelm the resistors more effectively or offer bigger rewards to entice desired changes. However, these strategies are easier said than done because of political considerations of the top leaders and limited resources. Thus, how to overcome the resistance to sustain reform is still very much a puzzle. This study seeks to discover the reform process in Shunde District of Guangdong Province, where administrative reform appeared to have made considerable progress in recent years. By tracing the reform process in Shunde from 2009 to 2012, I seek to identify the diverse roles of different actors during different phases of the reform process. Stakeholders with diverse interests and resources adopted various strategies to influence the reform. This study shows that the sustenance of reform reflects, ironically, the logics of both path dependence and path creation. The past reform trajectories have created a favorable background for further reform to evolve, and a receptive ground in which exogenous forces interacted with the local reform-minded actors to create the new reform innovations. The combination of path dependence and path creation kept reform in Shunde afloat.

Date of Award	16 Feb 2015
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	City University of Hong Kong
Supervisor	Che Lan Linda LI (Supervisor)