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How are policy pilots managed? Findings from the New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme in China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2023

Yunpeng Song  and
Yanwei Li Open the ORCID record for Yanwei Li [Opens in a new window]
Yunpeng Song
Affiliation:
Department of Public Administration, College of Politics and Public Administration, Qingdao University, Qingdao 266061, China Qingdao Emergence Center, Qingdao 266035, China
Yanwei Li*
Affiliation:
Department of Public Administration, School of Political Science and Public Administration, Shandong University, Qingdao 266237, China
*
Corresponding author: Yanwei Li; Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Policy piloting has become a popular form of organization in implementing public policies. However, the current literature surprisingly discusses little about its management. This study investigates how two policy-pilot attributes – ambiguity and compatibility – shape policy-pilot management. To accomplish this, we developed an analytic framework consisting of four management strategies: experimentation, refinement, upscaling, and institutionalization. We chose a representative policy pilot in Chinese health governance, the New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme, to examine the adoption of these four strategies. Our finding that, at various junctures, the Chinese state adopted these four strategies to manage policy piloting demonstrates the applicability of the analytic framework constructed in this study. This study contributes to the existing public policy literature by providing new insights into policy implementation in temporary organizing settings.

Keywords

Chinaexperimentinghealth governanceinstitutionalizationpolicy pilotingupscaling
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Public Policy , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , March 2024 , pp. 143 - 163
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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