Abstract:

Max Weber's suggestion that bureaucracy originatcs from modern society has some shortcomings, such as institution design deficiency and an inability to respond to social transitions. Therefore，as China’s newtype of deliberative and coordinatig agency, the Special Work’Team can be found at various levels of the Party andgovernments. It promotes inter-departmental cooperation and responds to exernal uncertainties. The Team attends topolicy implementation promotion and accomplishing governance tasks by targeting individual responsibility and focu-sing government attention. This article defines the Special Work’Team concept,clarifies its main types, and analy-zes the academic discussion around the concept. From the perspective of comparative study, the characteristics andmechanisms of the Special Work Team concept were analyzed through a summary of debates from current research. From the perspective of bureaucracy, this paper provides an analytical framework to investigate the functions andmechanisms of the Special Work Team in optimizing the hierarchical system.Finally, the future of Special WorkTeam research is described.

Key words: special work team, attention allocation, hierarchy, chinese path to modernization