Dual Decentralization and Fragmented Authoritarianism in Governance: Crowding Out among Social Programmes in China

Abstract

Summary In this paper, we use city‐level datasets of social assistance programmes over 280 cities between year 2003 and 2011 to verify the existence of the crowding out between social assistance programmes and unemployment insurance in China. In other words, the expansion of social assistance programmes is associated with a reduction in the enrolment of unemployment insurance. With verifying the existence of the crowding out, this article argues that the crowding out is a result of an ineffective coordination across government departments. In the process of ‘dual decentralization,’ in which the central government has delegated welfare provision responsibility to local governments, the misalignment of incentive and institutions between central and local governments explains the ineffective coordination. Different from many studies in the literature, this paper presents an adverse consequence of China's bureaucratic incentive system in social policy implementation. Also, while the conceptual framework ‘fragmented authoritarianism’ has highlighted the policy ineffectiveness in the economic policy area, this paper contributes to this literature by illustrating the policy ineffectiveness in the social policy areas. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Higher education governance and policy in China: managing decentralization and transnationalism

“…The state's capacity to create a quasi-market, which entails local knowledge and contextual adjustment, is established through the feature of experimentation in the Chinese policy forming process. Similar observations have also been reported by other studies that examine the central-local relations when governing or managing social service delivery and social program implementation across different parts of the country (Mok & Huang, 2017;Qian & Mok, 2016;Shi, 2017).…”

The Productivist Construction of Selective Welfare Pragmatism in China

“…Qian and Mok () analyzed longitudinal government expenditures in education, health, social security and assistance programmes for three city governments in the Eastern coastal areas in China, and highlighted the unintended consequences of what they called a ‘dual decentralization’ process. More precisely, Qian and Mok () posit a ‘crowding out effect’ of social programme delivery at the local level in China due to the adverse consequences of a performance evaluation system related to social welfare delivery, and argued that the fragmentary authority and information structure may cause policy ineffectiveness.…”

“…Qian and Mok () analyzed longitudinal government expenditures in education, health, social security and assistance programmes for three city governments in the Eastern coastal areas in China, and highlighted the unintended consequences of what they called a ‘dual decentralization’ process. More precisely, Qian and Mok () posit a ‘crowding out effect’ of social programme delivery at the local level in China due to the adverse consequences of a performance evaluation system related to social welfare delivery, and argued that the fragmentary authority and information structure may cause policy ineffectiveness. Thus, they present an argument that is in line with the idea of ‘paternalistic welfare pragmatism’ in China for two reasons: first, government social expenditures are based on the fiscal capacity of city‐level governments; second, variations of welfare programs are associated with the dichotomy between the urban formal and informal sector.…”

Introduction – Managing Welfare Expectations and Social Change: Policy Responses in Asia

“…The most recent comparative studies presented by Saunders and He () provide strong evidence revealing diversity and variations of policies and practices in managing social protection across the Chinese societies in East Asia. Ka Ho Mok, Stefan Kühner and Genghua Huang (the second article in this issue) present how Mainland China, as a huge country, has experienced welfare regionalism and variations in terms of social protection measures as strongly influenced by different socio‐economic and socio‐political environments within the country (see also Qian and Mok ). In South‐East Asia, the politics of fiscal decentralization and the ensuing geographical dispersion of social policy provision and outcomes is also well documented (see e.g.…”