Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T08:13:23.906Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Bureaucratic Shirking in China: Is Sanction-based Accountability a Cure?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2021

Wenyan Tu
Affiliation:
Fudan University, Shanghai, China. Email: [email protected].
Ting Gong*
Affiliation:
City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
*
Email: [email protected] (corresponding author).

Abstract

This study analyses the intricate relationship between sanction-based accountability and bureaucratic shirking. Drawing on an original survey conducted among Chinese civil servants, it addresses the question of whether sanction-based accountability can effectively regulate the conduct of public officials and provide a cure for bureaucratic shirking. The study identifies the characteristics of shirking behaviour in the Chinese bureaucracy and distinguishes three major patterns: evading responsibility, shifting responsibility and reframing responsibility. The findings indicate that sanction-based accountability may contain some obvious and notorious slacking types of behaviour, such as stalling and inaction, but government officials may distort or reframe their responsibilities to cope with accountability pressure. Empirical evidence suggests that owing to some “strategic” adjustments in bureaucratic behaviour, flagrant shirking is replaced by more subtle ways of blame avoidance, such as playing it safe or fabricating performance information. Sanction-based accountability therefore does not offer a panacea for bureaucratic shirking.

摘要

摘要

本研究探讨了惩处型问责与官僚懒政行为之间的复杂关系。基于对中国公职人员的问卷调查,本文分析了惩处型问责是否能够有效地规范官僚行为,并降低其懒政行为。本文揭示了中国官僚体系懒政行为的特征,并区分了三种基本模式:回避责任,推诿责任及异化责任。研究结果表明,惩处型问责能够遏制回避责任这类直接忽视和敷衍责任的行为,如拖延和不作为,但却使一些官员通过异化责任这类更隐蔽的方式来规避风险和减轻问责压力。官僚会对其行为进行 “策略性调整”,从直接逃避责任转向更为隐蔽的避责方式。因此,惩处型问责并不是治理官僚懒政行为的灵丹妙药。

Type
Research Report
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of SOAS University of London

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ashforth, Blake E., and Lee, Raymond T.. 1990. “Defensive behavior in organizations: a preliminary model.Human Relations 43(7), 621648.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Behn, Robert D. 2001. Rethinking Democratic Accountability. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Bennett, Nathan, and Naumann, Stefanie E.. 2005. “Understanding and preventing shirking, job neglect, social loafing, and free riding.” In Kidwell, Roland E. and Martin, Christopher L., (eds.), Managing Organizational Deviance. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 113129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bovens, Mark. 2007. “Analysing and assessing accountability: a conceptual framework.European Law Journal 13(4), 447468.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brandsma, Gijs Jan, and Schillemans, Thomas. 2013. “The accountability cube: measuring accountability.Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 23(4), 953975.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brehm, John O., and Gates, Scott. 1999. Working, Shirking, and Sabotage: Bureaucratic Response to a Democratic Public. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Bruijn, Hans de. 2002. “Performance measurement in the public sector: strategies to cope with the risks of performance measurement.International Journal of Public Sector Management 15(7), 578594.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Lei. 2017a. “Shibada yilai zhongyang gong kaizhan 12 lun xunshi” (The central government has conducted 12 rounds of inspections since the 18th National Congress of the CCP). Fazhi wang, 29 June, http://www.jcrb.com/anticorruption/ffyw/201706/t20170629_1770892.html. Accessed 23 July 2020.Google Scholar
Chen, Lei. 2017b. “Dangnei fagui tixi cheng quanmian congyan zhidang zhidu baozhang” (The inner-Party regulations provide an institutional guarantee for strengthening the Party discipline). Fazhi wang, 2 July, https://www.chinacourt.org/article/detail/2017/07/id/2907982.shtml. Accessed 23 July 2020.Google Scholar
Deng, Dacai. 2020. “Fanxiang bize: shangwei zhuanjia yu zheceng yize” (Backward blame avoidance: shifting responsibility up to superiors). Lilun tantao (2), 157162.Google Scholar
Dubnick, Melvin J. 2003. “Accountability and ethics: reconsidering the relationships.International Journal of Organization Theory and Behavior 6(3), 405441.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gao, Jie. 2009. “Governing by goals and numbers: a case study in the use of performance measurement to build state capacity in China.Public Administration and Development 29(1), 2131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gao, Jie. 2015. “Pernicious manipulation of performance measures in China's cadre evaluation system.The China Quarterly 223, 618637.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gong, Ting, and Xiao, Hanyu. 2017. “The formation and impact of isomorphic pressures: extravagant position-related consumption in China.Governance 30(3), 387405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hood, Christopher. 2002. “The risk game and the blame game.Government and Opposition 37(1), 1537.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hupe, Peter, and Buffat, Aurélien. 2014. “A public service gap: capturing contexts in a comparative approach of street-level bureaucracy.Public Management Review 16(4), 548569.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Gareth R. 1984. “Task visibility, free riding, and shirking: explaining the effect of structure and technology on employee behavior.Academy of Management Review 9(4), 684695.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jos, Philip H., and Tompkins, Mark E.. 2004. “The accountability paradox in an age of reinvention: the perennial problem of preserving character and judgment.Administration and Society 36(3), 255281.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lieberthal, Kenneth G. 1992. “Introduction: the ‘fragmented authoritarianism’ model and its limitations.” In Lieberthal, Kenneth G. and Lampton, David M. (eds.), Bureaucracy, Politics, and Decision Making in Post-Mao China. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 130.Google Scholar
Lipsky, M. 2010. Street-level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Service. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Lupia, Arthur, and McCubbins, Mathew D.. 1994. “Learning from oversight: fire alarms and police patrols reconstructed.Journal of Law Economics and Organization 10(1), 96125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mansbridge, Jane. 2014. “A contingency theory of accountability.” In Bovens, Mark, Goodin, Robert E. and Schillemans, Thomas (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Public Accountability. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 55–68.Google Scholar
Meier, Kenneth J., and O'Toole, Laurence J. Jr. 2006. “Political control versus bureaucratic values: reframing the debate.Public Administration Review 66(2), 177192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ni, Xing, and Wang, Rui. 2017. “Cong yaogong dao bize: jiceng guanyuan xingwei bianhua yanjiu” (From credit claiming to blame avoidance: the behavioural change of grassroots bureaucrats). Zhengzhixue yanjiu (2), 4251.Google Scholar
O'Connell, Lenahan. 2005. “Program accountability as an emergent property: the role of stakeholders in a program's field.Public Administration Review 65(1), 8593.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pandey, Sanjay K., Wright, Bradley E. and Moynihan, Donald P.. 2008. “Public service motivation and interpersonal citizenship behavior in public organizations: testing a preliminary model.International Public Management Journal 11(1), 89108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perry, James L. 1996. “Measuring public service motivation: an assessment of construct reliability and validity.Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 6(1), 522.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pierre, Jon, and Peters, B. Guy. 2017. “The shirking bureaucrat: a theory in search of evidence?Policy and Politics 45(2), 157172.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schubert, Gunter, and Alpermann, Björn. 2019. “Studying the Chinese policy process in the era of ‘top-level design’: the contribution of ‘political steering’ theory.Journal of Chinese Political Science 24(2), 199224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sobol, Mor. 2016. “Principal–agent analysis and pathological delegation: the (almost) untold story.Governance 29(3), 335350.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, Peng, and Yan, Xia. 2019. “Bureaucratic slack in China: the anti-corruption campaign and the decline of patronage networks in developing local economies.The China Quarterly 243, 611634.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, Xiaohu. 2002. “Assessing administrative accountability: results from a national survey.The American Review of Public Administration 32(3), 350370.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williamson, Oliver E. 1987. “Transaction cost economics.Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organization 8(4), 617625.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yuen, Samson. 2014. “Disciplining the Party: Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign and its limits.China Perspectives 3, 4147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar