When top-down meets bottom-up: Local adoption of social policy reform in China

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Huang, Xian; Kim, Sung Eun
• 署名单位: Rutgers University System; Rutgers University New Brunswick; Korea University
• 刊物名称: GOVERNANCE-AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF POLICY ADMINISTRATION AND INSTITUTIONS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0952-1895
• DOI: 10.1111/gove.12433
• 发表日期: 2020
• 关键词: POLITICAL-ECONOMY; decentralization; performance; INNOVATION; insurance; diffusion

摘要

Authoritarian local leaders face two driving forces in social policymaking: top-down pressure from the regime and bottom-up motivations derived from local conditions. Existing studies recognize the importance of both forces, but remain unclear as to how they interact and which of them is more influential in driving local policy adoption. Focusing on two health insurance integration policies in China, we find that when the policy entails substantial class or distributive conflicts and bureaucratic friction, top-down pressure for compliance is a dominant driver for local policy adoption; when the policy does not entail such conflicts or bureaucratic infighting, bottom-up motivations based on local economic geography together with top-down pressure drive local adoption. We find support for this argument from an analysis of an original city-level data set in China from 2004 to 2016. This study has implications for social policy reform, decentralization, and government responsiveness in authoritarian countries with multilevel governance.