Supply Of Public Cultural Services: The Role Of Government

Since the implementation of reform and opening policy of China, the socialist market economy is making steady progress, our society has witnessed a shift from simply having adequate food and clothing to an all-around type, the growing cultural needs of the people, which inject fresh energy into the cultural development and also bring new demand to the offers of public cultural services inexorably.Public culture refers to virous kinds of non-profit culture under the guidance of the government and the broad participation of the masses. It is conductive to the popularization of cultural education, the spread of advanced culture, the satisfaction of cultural needs of the people, and the promotion of national soft power. Public culture is the foundation of a country's basic ideology, which has important implications to the economic and social development. Thereinto, respecting and guaranteeing people's cultural rights is the precondition for government to set up the system of public cultural services. The promotion of cultural soft power is the inherent requirement of establishing the system of public cultural services. As to the supply of public cultural services, the government's conduction is the most important factor that affects its quantity and quality. How to maximize the role of government is the key point to the supply of public cultural services. Therefore, how to increase the supply of public culture, thus better maintaining and developing public cultural rights, fostering social values, as well as enhancing China's cultural soft power is an important issue.This dissertation takes the protection of the public and cultural rights of citizens and the promotion of the national cultural soft power as the main line, and centeres around the role that government plays in the supply of public cultural services. The main problems to be solved are as follows:(1) to elaborate the definition, composition, function and theoretical basis of public cultural services;(2) to establish delivery model of public cultural service that suits the specific conditions of our country;(3) to examine the government's supply level, work priorities and policy effect of public cultural services through positive analysis and put forward suggestions.After the elaboration of some related basic conceptions and literature reviews, this dissertation discusses the theoretical basis of government's setting up the public cultural service system in terms of public goods, culture competition, welfare analysis and market timing. Given the international experience and national conditions, we get China's supply pattern of public cultural services. And it also uses empirical data to analyse the supply of public cultural services, then analyses the masses satisfaction of this supply through questionnaires, puts forward related suggestions lastly.Chapter One, Introduction, describes the background and significance of the topic on government's role in the supply of public cultural services. Analyse the domestic and international research on the status of public cultural services. It also explicits research direction, important points and research methods of this dissertation, and shows the possible innovations.Chapter Two, Discussion on the conceptions of public cultural services. It firstly defines the definition, composition, features and function of public cultural services at all levels about cultural, public cultural services and public cultural service system, then makes supplements to the public cultural service system. Emphasizes that the basic cultural rights to meet the needs of the public, the formation and promotion of cultural soft power are two core functions of public cultural services.Chapter Three, Theoretical basis of government's supply of public cultural services. Further discusses the theoretical basis of government's supply of public cultural services, centering around the two core functions in terms of public goods, culture competition, welfare analysis and market timing.Chapter Four, Supply pattern of China's public cultural services. It firstly summarizes the supply pattern, then points out the history and challenges faced by China's public cultural services, analyses its path choice through the Game Theory. Lastly introduces the transition mode and targeting mode of government's supply of public cultural services.Chapter Five, Positive analysis about government's supply of public cultural services. Making use of cluster analysis and classification, it respectively analyses China's provincial government's supply ability and supply level of public cultural services. Then we select several representative provinces according to the outcome of cluster analysis, utilize factor analysis method to confirm the corresponding supply level of public cultural services of all provinces, thus deeply analysing the factors that affect the supply of governments at all levels. In addition, the international status and the gap of China's supply of public cultural services are confirmed clearly through international comparison, which provides decision rationale for future institutional improvement.Chapter Six, Analysis on the public satisfaction of public cultural services and its influencing factors. The focus of Chapter five is on the view of supply,whereas Chapter six mainly focuses on the view of demand.This chapter composes of three sections, taking Shandong as an example to study the public satisfaction on cultural services. Firstly, it analyses the basic statistics of public satisfaction based on the information reflected from questionnaires. Then, it studies the satisfaction rating and sorting of public cultural services provision through grey reational analysis. At last, utilizing regression analysis to confirm various factors that affect the public satisfaction, showing the degree of implication by these indexes.Chapter Seven, Ideas and policy recommendations on improving government's supply of public cultural services. Addressing the problems that found in the study, this paper seeks for suggestions of strengthening the government's capacity of providing public cultural services to better meet the public cultural needs and enhance China's cultural soft power. Then putting forward policy suggestions from realistic and targeting model respectively.Chapter Eight, Conclusions and prospectives. Summarizing this dissertation and pointing out the future research directions.The following are the principal innovation. (1) The article emphasizes that there are two main objectives for governments to supply public cultural services, firstly to satisfy the public's basic cultural rights, and secondly help to bring about the formation and upgrading of cultural soft power.(2) The paper aims to research the indicator system which describes the level of public cultural service from the view of supply, and also studies the supply of public culture of China's provincial governments. Then from the demand point of view, t analyses the public satisfaction represented by Shandong Province. The two aspects combine and testify each other, not only clarifying the government's supply level, but finding its focus and defects as well.(3) Research has been emphasizing on qualitative studies.There is a serious shortage of quantitative research, particularly the quantitative research by use of modern statistical methods. Due to the lack of data support, theoretical analysis seems not convincing enough. The use of game analysis, cluster analysis, factor analysis, comparative analysis and other tools for empirical analysis can help to change the status quo.