Theories And Practice Of Constructing A County Government Of Public Service Type

Compared with the increasing need for public services in today's China, our institutional reform apparently lags behind, which calls for rational and original public service provision mechanisms and means, and the establishment of efficient and fair public service supplying pattern with symmetrical power and responsibility.At county levels, the government assumes growing responsibilities for provision of rural public services. However, public service capacities on the part of county governments can not meet the needs owing to the impact of the previous plan and control systems. Restricted by such factors as notions, means and resources of services, the conflicts between supply and demand tend to intensify, which is responsible for government failure in terms of public services. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze from different aspects the status quo and origin of governmental public services at county level. The present study concludes that the advancement and betterment of county public services can be achieved by improvement of public service supplying mechanisms and establishment of effective demand expression mechanisms.After reviewing the relevant theories of public services, the writer selected Xinfu District of Shanxi province as the object of the case study, with a combination of normative and empirical analysis. The thesis can be divided into three parts: the first part gives a review of the basic conceptions of public service capacity, and defines the role of the county government in public service capacity building; the second and key part takes Xinfu District as an example, to investigate the status quo of local public services regarding education and sanitation, and to provide empirical reference for improvement of effective supply of public goods from county governments; the third part gives an analysis of achievements and problems of county public service capacity building and the causes of public service capacity deficiency, and also proposes constructive measures for public service capacity building at county level. This study concentrated on the general model of public service system construction at county level, and selected a typical county in central China, where agriculture is the leading factor in the local economy, and probed into the public service pattern adaptive to Chinese county government.This study is innovation both in research scope and method, and also of practical significance to construct service-oriented governments.