Table of Content

15 July 2022, Volume 38 Issue 4

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Goal Setting and Pathway Selections for the Construction of the Common Prosperity Demonstration Zone——A Text Analysis of the “Implementation Plan” of 11 Municipalities in Zhejiang Province

Yu Jianxing, Huang Biao, Jiang Yazhou

2022, 38(4):  4-17. 

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Common prosperity is a long-term and systematic project, which requires macro guidance from top-level governments and differentiated design and implementation at the local level.Given the strategic framework of the central government, how do local governments set goals and select pathways for common prosperity policy according to local conditions? Based on a text analysis of the “Implementation Plan” for the construction of common prosperity in 11 municipalities in Zhejiang Province, this paper finds there are three types of goals for common prosperity in Zhejiang: comprehensive development, model construction as promoters, and leaping forward by leveraging comparative advantage.Nine pathways have also been formed: deepening innovation-driven development, developing the private economy, promoting ecological construction, promoting public services, coordinating urban and rural development, smoothing dual circulation, improving digital governance, facilitating regional collaboration, and achieving spiritual prosperity.Local competition under provincial demonstration is the underlying logic of the construction of the Zhejiang Common Prosperity Demonstration Zone.This model has important implications for other localities to advance common prosperity and for understanding the complex governance of policy implementation in contemporary Chinese government.

Values and the Promotion of Digital Reform

Chen Chouyong

2022, 38(4):  18-26. 

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Digital reform represents the values of our times in today’s political consciousness.This leading pursuit promotes the implementation of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era in Zhejiang province.It is a strategic choice meant to seize the opportunity of a new revolution of science, technology, and industrial transformation, to create a global digital transformation highland.This systematic remodeling will boost the first mover advantage of reform and opening up in Zhejiang Province; transform the economic system from development-oriented to common prosperity; and, become the fundamental driving force promoting modernization and common prosperity in the new development stage.Digital reform keeps pace with the times but also shapes change.It will uphold the leadership of the Party and strengthen Party building as the fundamental guarantee; adhere to the nation’s people first value orientation; meet the expectations of the masses; promote theoretical innovation and focus on system remodeling as the main direction of growth; remain on the Chinese road and create a global digital transformation highland; stimulate vitality as a distinct feature; and, inspire the self-revolution that reshapes cadres into the nation’s strategic fulcrum.Digital reform is system integration and multi department collaboration.The challenge is to grasp the omni-directional nature of digital reform that is systematic, relevant, and standardized.This will require the deepening and iterative upgrading of digital reforms with dynamic characteristics that allow for two-way interactions between top-down and bottom-up agents of change.Digital reform is based on platforms and guided by applications.The construction of public data platforms is the key foundation of digital reform.They will support the intellectualization of digital reform through the construction of a digital brain.It must reflect the public’s support as viewed through the use of applications, which will highlight the practical feasibility of digital reform.Ultimately, these efforts must strengthen the resource allocation effectiveness of digital reform by building multiple application scenarios.

Chinese Governance from a Comparative Perspective: Analysis and Reflections

Jing Yijia, Ren Yuanyuan

2022, 38(4):  27-38. 

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A correct perception of the comparative characteristics and global values of China’s governance is particularly important to understand its efforts to promote the modernization of national governance and enhance its international discourse power,.This study selected 20 influential governance indices published from 2000 to 2020 to analyze China’s scores and rankings.The analysis shows that the overall evaluation of China by these indices is at a moderate level, with a slight increasing trend.At the same time, there are significant structural differences.This reflects the characteristics of governance supply in China, a developing country, and the limitations in the design and operation of the indices. As this article argues, to successfully “address Chinese issues” and “tell Chinese stories”, international governance indices should be used with the dialectical recognition of the particularity and generality of good governance firmly in mind.

Stimulating Innovative Vitality through Ecosystems

Chenlijun, Liyan, Fuyan

2022, 38(4):  39-50. 

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The key to stimulating creativity lies in improving the climate for innovation.Building an ecosystem to stimulate innovative vitality is an important aspect of talent work.Under the “four orientations”, this is the core task for accelerating the construction of an important and globally competitive talent center.An innovation ecosystem is the agglomeration and integration of innovation elements.This includes an institutional environment that promotes coupling and coordinating with the global talent community.Gathering talent and stimulating their innovative vitality requires a multi-faceted collaboration that is beyond any one government policy or department.Ecosystem construction includes the coupling of diverse agents and elements, supplying multiple systems, and the close collaboration between regional ecological subsystems that operate beyond their geographical space.Similar to natural ecosystems, participants are configured and linked in the production, diffusion and application of knowledge.They are affected by the cluster (Organization), the institutional arrangements among factors, and the spatial interaction among multiple ecological subsystems.Therefore, the ecosystem structure to stimulate the innovative vitality of talents mainly includes three levels: element level, system level, and space level.

Foreign Language and Governance: How Second Language Acquisition Constructs Mass Cognitive Capability for Politics

Hu Yue, Zhu Meng

2022, 38(4):  51-65. 

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Second language proficiency is a characteristic of modernization and a prerequisite for a state’s international influence.However, the mainstay of the existing research on second language acquisition (SLA) focuses on international communications and education, ignoring SLA’s sociopolitical functions and values for domestic governance.The novel “language policy field” theory fills this academic vacuum by specifying four paths SLA can affect individuals’ political capabilities, especially their cognitive capabilities.The findings of this study, which used data from a nationally representative survey in China, supports the hypotheses of this theory.The empirical analyses show that respondents’ English proficiency significantly modified their cognitive capabilities regarding politics as measured by political efficacy.SLA increases internal efficacy mainly through the information-collection mechanism while raising external efficacy through the relative-proficiency mechanism.There is no evidence that SLA affects political capacities through value changes.In this sense, the influence of SLA is more on literacy than on beliefs.The new theory and findings have far-reaching implications for language governance, national capacity, and the modernization of governance in general.

Governing Power in the Party's Leadership Logic:Political Connotation and Legal Requirement

Liu Honglin, Tan Yadan

2022, 38(4):  66-76. 

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The century-long history of adhering to the Party leadership shows that the Party leadership and governing power are always complementary, and the governing power is always based on the Party leadership.Exercising governing power is a powerful way to fortify the Party leadership.To construct a long-term ruling Marxist Party in the new era, we must think deeply about the governing power by closely relating it to Party leadership.Comparatively speaking, the Party leadership belongs to “political power”, emphasizing “conformity with the public will”, while the governing power belongs to the “legal category”, emphasizing “conformity with the law”.They differ in scope, practice, and pathways.Only by understanding the political nature, basic content, basic characteristics, and basic requirements of the governing power of the Party is it possible to examine the logic of its leadership.From the perspective of the Party's leadership logic, the governing power has the dual attributes of political power and political rights, with a distinct political nature that is both “legal” and “procedural”, occupies space-time, and adheres to boundaries.In the new era, to maximize the Party's governing power, we must organically unify the Party leadership and governing power, and strengthen the Party's political leadership and supervision over state organs.This will include increasing the awareness of long-term governance concepts that always put the people first.By keeping pace with the times, Party's governing system and mode will improve and advance the rule of law.It will also enhance cadres’ governance abilities and win the people's trust though political integrity, clean government, and honest officials.

Virtual Connection: Why Social Organizations Are Organized——A case study of the economically developed Area A

Wang Qing, Zhang Nan

2022, 38(4):  77-86. 

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Balancing development and stability, the state is supportive of social organizations, but prevents them from cooperating through hierarchical management and by restricting competition.Virtual connection has appeared in social organizations in recent years.These organizations have only established a network of relationships and have not jointly promoted agenda setting.The formation logic of these virtual connections can be analyzed from the perspective of two-way logic.Local governments choose social organizations to supply social services. Based on safety, the departments of local governments prefer familiar social organizations.Virtual connection is a strategy adopted by social organizations to complete tasks.Virtual connection is a function of the needs of government and, at present, these connections remain under the control of government.

Pluralistic Models and their Applicability to Co-Governance between Business Associations and Governments

Zhou Jun, Zhao Xiaocui

2022, 38(4):  87-94. 

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To promote the development of the industry and establish a standardized market economic order, it is necessary to actively promote the co-governance of business associations and governments.But co-governance is relatively underdeveloped in the literature.Drawing on the theory of network models, the co-governance models of business associations and governments can be divided into three types: cooperation, coordination, and collaboration.Empirical research on association A in S city finds that there are significant differences in the duration of existence, objectives and prospects, structural linkages, formality, and the expectation of risk and benefit of different co-governance models, which are applicable to different situations and needs.The co-governance of business associations and governments is inseparable from specific institutional conditions and interaction conditions and the degree of resource dependence.The completeness of interactive rules, the expectation of interests, and strategic abilities jointly shape co-governance models.The framework of pluralistic models are conducive to understanding the complexity and diversity of the co-governance practice of business associations and governments in China.They can also provide a useful reference for the establishment of a benign interactive government-business association relationship after a decoupling reform.

The Spatial Interaction of Industrial Isomorphism and Circulation Costs

Cheng Yan, He Liang

2022, 38(4):  95-107. 

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Using China's provincial panel data from 2001 to 2019, the spatial simultaneous equation model was used to investigate the endogenous relationship and spatial interaction between industrial homogeneity and circulation costs.This research found that as the level of regional industrial homogeneity increases, circulation costs show a U-shaped change trend, and circulation costs have a positive feedback effect on industrial homogeneity.In geographical space, industrial homogeneity has negative spatial spillovers and positive spatial interactions effect, the change of circulation cost is manifested in positive spatial overflow and negative spatial interaction characteristics.Through an analysis of cost reduction, efficiency enhancement, and inter-provincial spatial scale, three observations were made.First, the central government should focus on building regional economic integration channels and guide circulation activities to form a circular accumulation that is self-locking and has an agglomeration effect within the scope of desirability.Second, local governments should rationally plan the “hard” infrastructure of transportation and networks, but constantly improve the “soft” infrastructure of the market system.This will reduce institutional costs while guiding the development of the industrial structure to a rational and advanced level.Finally, circulation companies should simultaneously expand offline and online circulation channels, and rely on the Internet and technology to achieve cost reduction of traditional circulation channels that are a function of physical distance.

The Theoretical Construction and Path Selection of Algorithmic Judgment——Enlightenment through Artificial Intelligence Experiments

Yang Yanchao

2022, 38(4):  108-122. 

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Judgment is an important part of intelligent social governance.There are two theories about whether artificial intelligence is applicable to judicial judgment and whether it can further strengthen fairness and justice.To grasp the causes of the problem and find solutions, we conducted a series of experiments to evidence review, legal fact determination, and legal application.The theoretical system of intelligent adjudication has been constructed; it includes the theory of computational justice, the theory of machine jurisdiction, and the theory of algorithmic arguability.The theory of computational justice emphasizes the value of algorithms in promoting judicial justice.The theory of machine jurisdiction emphasizes that judgment shall be controlled by human judges but assisted by machines.The theory of algorithmic arguability focuses on the review and questioning of the algorithms in use, which provides effective protection for the rights of the parties.This paper describes the future of intelligent judgment: its transformation from digital to intelligent, the collaboration between judges and algorithmic models, and the construction of an algorithmic model review system.