Truncated Decision Making-implementation As Deliberation: The Policy Process Of China’s Coal

In the institutional transition period, what kind of feature for China’s public policyprocess? This paper studies policy formation and implementation process of China’scoal industry policy during the period of the twenty-first century, and points that“Truncated decisions making and implementation as deliberation” is the character of thecontemporary policy process. Based on this, it built a framework to analyze the policyfluctuations and transitions.After comparing three competitive theoretical perspectives and current policyprocess theory, the paper constructed the analytical framework of “Truncated decisionsmaking-Implementation as deliberation”, and further answered the question: Why ahuge reversal from the market-oriented reforms of “Paid Utilizing of Coal Resources” tonationalization reform of “Merger and Acquisitions” happened within the coal industryin just a few years.Empirically, this paper selected two policies related to the China’s coal industry askey cases to thoroughly study the decision-making and the implementation process.Also, it analyzes the developmentof China’s coal industry and the evolution of policiesand institutional arrangements.The study found that: contemporary Chinese public policy decision-makingprocess is reflected by the truncated decisions making under political pressure whichfrequently intertwined with implementation as deliberation. Political pressure madepolitical elite to pursue political rationality and truncate the key link of weighing theadvantages and disadvantages. As compensation, the policy implementation is full ofinconstant bargaining, negotiation and compromise. There is a tension between thepolicy target and implementation result. In addition, the administrative elite also havethe dual role of administrative agents and interest seekers. The interest patern definesthe game instrategies, leading to different implementation patterns and performances.The frequent replacements of the political elites break the policy cycle, force thedecision-making process to be truncated and policy implementation to be interruptted.The use of high-frequency and high degree of discretion is the catalyst for policyfluctuations, leading to instability policy and diversification of implementation outputs, triggering a policy fluctuations and transitions.Finally, this paper analyzed the consequence of policy fluctuations and transitions,pointetd out that stable policy is necessary for industrial development, scientific policydecisions and top-level design with a forward-looking is the way to good industrialgovernance. The study also proposed three approaches to optimize public policy process:reduce political pressure in the process of policy decisions and optimize incentivestructure; broaden the channel of knowledge and opinions inputs to increase theparticipation of experts and the public; speicify the administrative discretion bordersandt establish stable administrative rules.