Western Experiences and China’s Problems

177

178

event in the Western public service development, and a number of methods it adopted like marketization and privatization seem to have significant effects on solving

“government failure” in public services. But it must be noticed that the movement is not so much a response to the quantity and structural changes of the citizens’ public service needs as it is a reaction to the long-standing bureaucratic system’s disadvantage and a forced choice of the government under financial pressure.

Long before welfare states generally established in the west, the government’s responsibility for providing general public services had been explicit, and it had been recognized that citizens’ rights for welfare are a central part of their social rights.

Under this background of recognized responsibility and rights, the New Public Management movement was generally an attempt to reform the supplying ways of public service, i.e, how the government cooperate with advanced civil society as well as an existing mature market economy. Different theoretical perspectives formed in accordance with different orientations of the supplying ways of public service, the New Public Management chose the market, and the New Public Service, however, opposed radical market orientation and promoted the significant role of civil society and citizen, while the Governance Theory and the Public Choice School advocated more about multi- governance.

It seems that the development of welfare states didn’t expand out of the above said frames. The capitalist market economy’s devolvement coincided with the state taking up the responsibility of providing public services, or it can be said that the general establishment of welfare systems was a sort of recognition of the state’s responsibility for supplying civil services. Economic crisis gave a heavy blow to the welfare system, therefore, welfare states which was lack of sufficient financial support had to choose reform and transformation. Since then, public service supplying mechanisms other than the state being a provider have been continuously developed, and the reform of bureaucratic systems corresponded to the transformation of welfare states.

There seem apparently different backgrounds for China’s public service reform from that for Western countries. Generally speaking, C hina’s public service reform

179

has at least four problems to solve:

The first one is the acknowledgment of the government’s responsibility for providing public service. Up to now the Chinese government has undergone two transformations, that is to say, from a versatile government under the planned economic system, it transformed into an economic development-oriented government during the early stage of its market economic system reform; and it has been transforming into a public service-oriented government since entering the 21 Century.

The first transformation relieved workplaces and collective organizations’ functions from providing public service, and the government has basically taken over this responsibility of public service supply during the second transformation.

Corresponding to the government transformations, the orientation of public service function has also arguably gone through a process of transformation. After the economic reform initiated, due to the “Economy Leading The Way” strategy, the role of public service’s function seemed to be used to be deemed as assistant to economic development. It hasn’t been centered upon serving for the citizen and the society until the goal of building a service-oriented government rose up to the top agenda, gradually, more functions have been included in public service, such as ensuring all citizens’ rights for public service, and maintaining the basic social justice through universal public service. To date, this transformation is still ongoing.

The second problem is the acknowledgment of the citizen’s rights for public service. Based on Britain’s experience, Marshall summarized a sequence-civil right-political right-social right for civil rights development , but in China, as Xiao Bin and some others claimed, one of the characteristics of the civil rights growing forms is “selective development under state dominance”, which means the three rights Marshall described didn’t develop simultaneously, but came into a somewhat successive order in growing forms under sate steering selective strategy. A selective development means it’s the rights for economic liberty, property , career choice and company organization that first developed since early 1980s when the market economy made the initial step; after the economic liberty was secured, followed up the right to education and social security; but political rights still lagged behind, with

180

the right to vote is not yet represented in Chinese citizens’ political life. If we add the participation right to the above three, we may say that Chinese people’s participation right is only at its very initial stage.^① Can we rely on social right as a channel for the connection of state and citizens? Or in other words, can we create more time for democracy by expanding the space for people’s livelihood? This seems a problem that deserves Chinese public service reform to explore.

The third problem, the conflict of supply being less than demand always exists.

Under the precondition that a welfare state has been proved infeasible, the government must answer the question that how it can satisfy the almost endless growing citizens’ needs for public service during the modernization process. The answer of this question involves not only the marketization of public service responsibilities, but also how the government can optimize the purchas ing mechanism of it. To this point, developed countries’ experiences in public service reform have provided many lessons, either in theories or in practice. We can also learn from them that under the condition of social organizations’ developmental immaturity, how the government can provide to citizens the necessary public services relying the organizations within and without its system. One special problem that Chinese public service reform must explore is how to activate, developed and utilizes the resources of all types of organizations under the existing framework of political system.

The fourth, with the needs for civil services becoming increasingly diversified, the government must resolve the problem of how it can provide for its citizens the public services that they need instead of what the government believes they need.

Neither China nor the west has got the complete answers for resolving the issue of citizen participation in modern public service system. From the experiences of some local level public service reforms, it can be seen that Chinese citizens’ participation in civil service still remains in a passive way. How to further implementing institutional reforms and mechanism innovations in order to encourage people to take initiative in their participation, thus further promote the democratization of public services? This

① Xiao Bin, Jiang Hongjun. “Citizen Rights.” In Jing Yuejin, Zhang Xiaojin, Yu Xunda, eds. Understand China’s Politics: Key Words Method, China Social Sciences Press, 2012, p.244.

181

is a common difficulty faced by many Chinese local public services.

The first two questions have been relatively fully explained in chapter 2 and chapter 3, and the third one was partly answered by “Government-Community Interaction”, however, the last one regarding civic participation is still waiting for more answers.

Actually, after the supply mechanism under the planned economic system collapsed, the Chinese supply mechanism of public services has undergone a progressive course from unitary pattern to multi-pattern. Up to now, China’s public service supply mechanisms have initially formed a complex plural pattern (refer to Table 5-1).

Table 5-1 Type of Public Service Supply Mechanisms of China

Type Mechanism Case

One-mechanism

Government Subsistence allowances

Market Commercial medical insurance

Organization^① Community- level self-governance organization provide citizens public service for free

Individual Family pension

Two-mechanism

Government+ market Government public service purchasing Government +

organization

Contracting agreement in

“government-community interaction” reform”^② Government+ individual Government provide paid service to individual

Organization + individual

“Party member official business discussion group” of donglin village^③

Market + individual Enterprise provide paid service to individual Organization+ market Community- level self-governance organization

public service purchasing

① Inclusive of organization both within such as community -level self-governance organizations , and outside system, such as volunteer groups, the third sectors.

② See Chapter 4 of this research.

③ See Chapter 4 of this research.

182

Three-mechanism

Government + market + organization

Community- level self-governance organization purchase public service from market with the fund from government

Government + market +individual

Government purchase public service form market, and individual pay part of the fees Market + organization +

individual

“Sunshine love service station” of zhongqu community^①

Four-

Mechanism

Government + market + organization + individual

“New Healthcare Reform”

The process is not so much a spontaneous result as it is a rational choice. When the government was not able to provide all the public products and services independently, it started to absorb other supply mechanisms. During the process, the government’s role as the major public service provider hasn’t changed. Or in other words, the mechanism selection or mechanism creation, just like some critics have described, was not relatively equal or independent actors’ voluntary agreements or semi-agreements, but the result of some actors exerting more influences than the other under a system framework of asymmetric power. ^②

5.1.2 Public Service Reform: Performance Evaluation and Citizen