Table of Content

15 March 2024, Volume 40 Issue 2

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China’s Second Demographic Dividend:Theoretical Exploration and Governance Choices

Peng Xizhe, Zhou Xiang

2024, 40(2):  4-16. 

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As the world’s aged population grows, the traditional demographic dividend is declining. However, the second demographic dividend theory has opened up a new perspective for economic growth in this context. This paper reviews the theory’s conceptual connotations and argues that its applicability to China depends on how it integrates the nation’s unique characteristics, economic development, and pattern of population aging. At its core, China’s second demographic dividend theory posits that the improvement of population quality can partially offset the negative effects caused by the declining size of the labor force. In the context of rapid development and widespread application of science and technology, it is necessary to fully tap the human resources potential of all age groups, especially the older labor force, to reconstruct the society and economic production mode, and ultimately achieve the sustained and stable growth of the national economy. This paper argues that China’s current developmental stage is capable of realizing a second demographic dividend and has the conditions to realistically achieve it. Doing so, however, depends on policymakers correctly understanding the relevant theories of demographic dividends, grasping the long-term dynamics of China's population, and adhering to basic population governance strategies. These strategies include a dual emphasis on the supply- and demand-side. This will provide effective policy guidance to society and the markets which will help achieve sustainable social and economic development under the general trend of population aging.

Health Risks and Resilience Governance in an Aged Society

Li Shuzhuo, Wang Xiaoxuan, Guo Jin

2024, 40(2):  17-34. 

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China’s aging population phenomenon is characterized by its significant scale, rapid growth, substantial variations across regions, and remarkable stability. Health issues among the elderly are becoming prominent and spreading to the societal development level, making the health risks of an aging society an urgent and crucial governance issue. Considering the ineffectiveness of traditional governance models, there is a need to introduce resilience governance to respond quickly, proactively and effectively, to risk shocks and challenges. In the context of rapid population aging and the prominence of health problems in the elderly, the core risk of an aging society is related to the many health problems these older adults face. These multidimensional risks result in high uncertainty, loss, and complexity to the sustainable development of the population and society. Therefore, resilience governance should achieve resilience in the elderly. Its guiding principles must emphasize whole-population, whole-life-cycle, dynamic adaptation, and categorized management, through comprehensive process management and collaborative efforts among multiple stakeholders. The aim should be to prevent, mitigate, and resolve the health risks and their consequences. Looking ahead, China must adopt a global and interdisciplinary perspective in governing the health risks associated with its aging society, and thereby contribute its unique experiences to the global discourse on promoting healthy aging.

The Pressurized System: A Concept for Depicting and Explaining the Operational Mechanisms of Chinese Governance

Yang Xuedong, Hu Tianyu

2024, 40(2):  35-43. 

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The original concept of a “pressurized system” was extracted by indigenous scholars for depicting and explaining the function of Chinese governance. As noted and widely cited by scholars of Chinese politics and governance, its explanatory power stems from its holistic understanding and its vivid depiction of the system’s operations. Rather than a mere metaphorical concept invented by scholars, the concept comes from the practical discourse of local officials in Henan. This article explains its historical origin, evolutionary process, and specific operation. The pressurized system is an institutional choice and part of China's catching-up modernization process. The concept’s nearest comparators are traditional China’s “Bixian system,” modernization’s “mobilization system,” and East Asia’s “developmental state.” Other original concepts that explain contemporary governance in China also share some of its traits. The process of its formation shows that living academic concepts should be documented by collecting practical facts, activating theoretical dialogue, and transforming practical discourse, particularly in studying politics and governance. China's rich governance experiences and innovations provide fertile soil and sustained impetus for producing more original concepts.

Listing Supervision and the Institutional Innovation of the Chinese Supervision System

Chen Hongcai, Zhang Zexing

2024, 40(2):  44-56. 

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The listed supervision system is now being used to deal with increasingly complex safety governance issues. Developed for social security governance and then used for ecological environmental protection, production safety and other fields, the system creatively integrates the supervision mechanism with Chinese characteristics into the complex governance scene. It has achieved remarkable governance results across regulatory fields. As a key facet of Chinese public management, it has been frequently used and studied in recent years. The political pressure, social pressure, and time pressure contained in listing supervision combine to form strong political potential energy. This prompts supervision objects such as local governments and their functional departments to immediately strengthen their political execution, organizational coordination, and social response. It is the signal that central policy objectives must be completed in a relatively short period of time. In this case, it was used to improve the efficiency of safety governance. Despite this record of success, we should adhere to a rational and scientific attitude when objectively evaluating the governance performance of the listed supervision office. On this basis, scholars can clarify the listed supervision system’s effectiveness boundaries, identify the underlying logic of its operation with higher quality research work, and develop countermeasures therefrom to ensure it always plays a positive function.

How Does Multi-Agent Collaborative Governance Promote the Co-production of Public Services?——An Institutional Analysis Based on the “Village FA” in R County

Zhang Youlang, Ran Yuhao

2024, 40(2):  57-72. 

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The co-production of public services is crucial to building a people-centered social governance community. This study proposes a framework of multi-agent collaborative governance (MCG) in co-production and takes the “Village FA” in R County as a case study to explore the impact of MCG on co-production. The research reveals that “Village FA” represents a co-production model involving the participation of society, government, and market actors, which stems from the public's self-organizing behavior. MCG enhances the effectiveness of co-production through mechanisms of social incubation, market facilitation, agenda absorption, and administrative empowerment. Co-production under MCG is the result of interactions among multiple levels of action stages with distinct phase characteristics, thus the application of these mechanisms necessitates consideration of their adaptability. This study contributes by integrating co-production theory with collaborative governance theory, thereby expanding the theoretical framework of co-production. Furthermore, it provides an empirical illustration of the mechanisms and institutionalization process of co-production in Chinese context.

Generative Mechanisms of Co-production in Rural Public Cultural Governance: A Case Analysis of Rural Spring Festival Gala

Li Shaohui, Yuan Shuo

2024, 40(2):  73-91. 

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The phenomenon of having a physical dwelling but lacking a sense of belonging has become a prominent issue in grassroots rural governance. Rural public cultural co-production, characterized by demand responsiveness and farmer subjectivity, has become a key model for addressing this thorny issue. This article analyzes the case of the rural Spring Festival Gala. We found that the generation of co-production in rural public cultural governance is the result of the combined effect of various factors converging at a specific moment. Specifically, the opening of the “event window” is driven by the event source flow, and the administrative window and local window are opened through the partial coupling of the event source flow with the administrative source flow and the local source flow. Based on this, a resource dependent relationship between the government and farmers is established, achieving the full coupling of, and opening of the cooperation window for, all three parties. Furthermore, under the logic of hierarchical operation and based on leadership will, co-production is generated and promoted. The revelation of the mechanism for the generation of rural public cultural co-production provides an important reference for understanding rural governance in the Chinese context and promoting rural revitalization.

How Local Governments Attract Talent——A Mixed Research Study from the Perspective of Policy Marketing

Xu Chang, Jin Ming, Chen Lijun

2024, 40(2):  92-106. 

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The competition among local governments for talent has become an emerging issue in policy theory. Recent studies highlight the significance of policy marketing for“competitive talent”, but fail to provide an in-depth analysis of the role and mechanism of marketing effects. Based on both theoretical research and a structural equation model, this study examines the characteristics of marketers and analyzes the case of Zhejiang’s 20-year strategy for developing a quality workforce. The characteristics of marketers have a significant, positive impact on the marketing effect of talent policies. Interest perception has an intermediary effect between the characteristics of marketers and the mentioned marketing effect. And policy acquisition willingness plays a negative role in interest perception's relationship with both marketer characteristics and marketing effect. Such conclusions may provide a theoretical basis for the application of policy marketing tools in promoting talent policy, and help local governments to leverage their advantages to stimulate self-awareness among policy audiences and enhance policy effect.

Local government’s role change and organizational adaptation in promoting business environment——A case study of government’s service added reform in Zhejiang Province

Pan Siwei, Liu Yindong, Huang Dongya

2024, 40(2):  107-122. 

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Promoting a business environment is important for governance modernization in local governments, a significant breakthrough to promote high-quality economic development. and enhance regional competitiveness. It is also the key focus point for governments at all levels. This article discusses the case of promoting the government's service added reform in Zhejiang Province by analyzing organizational adjustments under the logic of the multiple system of business environment governance as the marginal benefits of traditional government services continue to decline. We found that the current re-innovation of business environment governance is the result of the exploration of independent governance through upgrading market players' demands and the promotion of economic development by local governments. This reflects the interweaving and interaction of the two institutional logics of market and politics in a specific space-time field. It also reflects the emergence of role transformation and corresponding organizational adjustments, from government supply-oriented to market response-oriented. This study provides empirical facts showing the relationship between government and the market and a possible analytical approach for the theoretical explanation of similar organizational phenomena.

Domestic Regulatory Pathways and Systematic Improvement of Outbound Personal Information Transfer

Zhao Jun, Yao Ruonan

2024, 40(2):  123-140. 

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The large-scale cross-border transmission of digital personal information has intensified the risks of harm to individual rights, public interests, and national security interests. The international community has not yet reached unified legal standards to address this issue. To maintain national data sovereignty, promote the development of the data industry, and ensure personal information security, countries have chosen to regulate the outbound personal information transfer through domestic laws and regulations, whether by national special legislation, unified legislation of the union, or national decentralized legislation. China’s national special legislation created a two-track regulation mechanisms of “hard” and “soft”, taking three regulation methods: security assessment, protection certification, and standard contract. However, regulations do provide that the two tracks overlap. And the public-private regulation has not yet been formed, which hinders the safe transmission of personal information. To promote the domestic rule of law and foreign-related rule of law, China should adopt a systematic approach to fortify the regulatory system for outbound personal information transfer. This involves leveraging the synergy of the public-private system in terms of the subject, strengthening the balance of the offensive and defensive system from a regulatory perspective, and enhancing the interaction between the internal and external systems concerning space. All these efforts aim to contribute Chinese wisdom to the establishment of a multilateral consensus on the cross-border regulation of personal information.

The Theoretical Basis, Practical Dilemma, and Development Orientation of Digital Procuratorate Reform

Hu Meikui

2024, 40(2):  141-155. 

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As an important part of the construction of “Digital China”, digital prosecution has promotes the reconstruction and reform of the legal supervision mode. At present, digital prosecution is still in the early stage of development. Therefore, it is urgent to strengthen basic theoretical research and promote a plan of reform by centering the digitalization of the operation mechanism of procuratorial power. This should begin by clarifying the concept connotations and historical context of digital prosecution. Reform efforts should also further demonstrate the legal basis for digital prosecution. The current digital prosecution reform’s difficulties include a case handling process that has not yet been conceptualized, a lack of data analysis and judgment abilities, a data system that is not standardized, and case teams that require greater professionalization. After reviewing the procuratorial power theory and its operational practice, this article suggests specific reforms to solve these problems. Basic guidelines should be adopted for the implementation of reform measures that will lay the foundation for the integration of digital procuratorial reform into the broader national governance system.