The Research On Publicness Of Public Policy From The Perspective Of Interest Group

The main difference between public policy and private policy is that public policyhas the characteristic of publicness. The measurement of publicness is public interest.Specifically, public authorities have an obligation to maximize public interest ofsociety in the formulation and implementation of public policy. Thus, public interestshould be the core guide for the public sector’s policy choices. Specific to the practice,citizen interest often reflect public interest, which requires public sector represent andrespond to public demand. However, as the subject of public policy, public sectorswill be affected by "self-interest" of sectoral interests and "profit-driven" interestgroups perform during the process of decision-making and policy implementation.How to maximize public interest in the complicated process of interest game andselection, and maintain the publicness value of public policy, has become an urgentproblem in needed of crack for public sectors. Interest groups worldwide have becomeone indispensable element of composition in political system and natural concomitantof democracy, and its existence is a time-honored political phenomenon. In China,with social transformation and the socialist market economic system bringingincreased social stratification and interest pattern differentiation, interest groupsbegin to emerge. In the background interests groups development, it is essential toreinterpretation interest group theory and its influence on public policy issuescombine with Chinese national conditions.Public policy process is a dynamic process interacted by a variety of factors. Thegrowth of diversification and activity of interest groups is bound to affect publicpolicy formulation and implementation, and even affects the public nature of publicpolicy. Interest group’s participation in public policy process will bring a range ofconsequences to the political system: on the one hand, it enhances politicalcommunication and expression of interest, promotes science, democracy and balanceto public policy making, strengthens supervision of public power to governmentexercise; potential negative effects on the other hand may also be brought to thepolitical system, such as block public policy making or passing which representspublic interest, increase cost of public policy implementation, result inimplementation deviation of public policy and influence decision-making justice,which is likely to lead to lawlessness phenomenon, especially in a society of imbalanced interest group competition. All these result in the loss of public policy’spublicity, lower government’s political authority and damage its legitimacyfoundation. The governance experience for interests groups in the United States,Russia and the European Union revelates that, the regulation of interests groups inChina in order to maintain public policy’s publicity needs to cultivate rational civilsociety, build fair and reasonable balance mechanism of interest, establish the legalbasis of interest groups to participate in public policy process, straighten out therelationship between government and interest groups, and other aspects, to expand itspositive role in reducing the negative impact of interest groups on public policy, keeppublicity the inherent property of public policy in context of interest-group politics.