In the context of globalization and informatization, the environment of public administration has become growing complicated, blurring the traditional boundaries of states, administrative divisions and government sectors. The government body has been pluralized with the engagement of various social sectors and organizations participate. Governance across boundaries, such as the experience in local governance and metropolitan governance, has become a valid mode in respond to the changing environment. The experience of local governments in China provides with a brilliant case. Since Reform and Openness, the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) has become the most important growth pole with its rapid development regional economic integration. Meanwhile, more and more problems across the administration divisions require innovative forms of cooperation and collaboration among the local governments in YRD.This dissertation proposes an analytical model of governance across boundaries based on the previous research, which is termed ISGPO including five dimensions:(1) initial conditions; (2) structure; (3) governance; (4) process; (5) outcomes. We will develop a comparative case study of the local government collaboration in YRD, the collaboration of EXPO tourism, and the regional social credit system construction in order to figure out the general pattern of governance across boundaries among local governments in China.It is found that, governance across boundaries and local government collaboration in YRD are structurally determined by the five dimensions with their respective variables of ISGPO. This dissertation claims the following contributions: proposing a new analytical framework of governance across boundaries to study the local government collaboration, which is more systematic in examining the complexity of environment and the diversity of the subjects of governance; developing the analytical model of ISGPO which can integrate the variety of dimensions and variables; generalizing the pattern of governance evolution in China through the analyses of ISGPO and concluding that the government should formulate mechanisms such as mobilization, adaptation, interaction and feedback to strengthen its capacity of collaboration and governance across boundaries. |