| County-level government is the important fundamental link in our state power system, it is the commanding authority for the prefecture economic and social development decision, and the executive authority as well for the implementation of the Central and superior governments policies, playing a fundamental and key role in the public management system of the whole country. Policy-making is an important part of the operating functions of the county-level government; it runs through the whole process of the county-level government management. For a County-level government, the high quality policy-making is the fundamental condition for the effective performance of its functions and the completion of its missions. Therefore, the policy-making ability of the is of great importance to the county-level government. In a practical view, however, the policy-making ability conditions of the County-level government in our country remain downbeat despite of some improvements in recent years. The insufficiency of the policy-making ability have directly led to the stagnation of the local economic development, deterioration of ecological environment and disorder and unsteady community, with long time accumulation of social conflicts or even large-scale mass violence. Therefore the enhancement of county-level government policy-making ability construction is quite urgent.However, there are rare domestic and foreign studies on the county-level government policy-making ability, while a few studies of which presented insufficient studying contents and studying methods. With respect to the study contents, most of the researchers were with the orientation of macro government policy-making abilities, the specific study on the county-level government policy-making ability, which is fundamental and important in the state public management system, is still basically blank. With respect to the study methods, the researchers generally interpreted the government policy-making ability as the qualities and abilities of the government and its decision makers, and carried out, on this basis, the study on the core issue of policy-making ability construction either in the view of the system and cultural view of holism or in the view of individual quality, ability structure, technology and methods etc. of individualism. The two studies were with isolated study paths from each other, presenting the "Monism" of Methodology, impairing the scientism and applicability of the study.The "Field" theory of France Sociologist Bourdieu alleged the primacy of relationship, believing the social reality containing action and structure as well as the history generated by the interaction of both, while the information of such social reality existed in the relationship. Hence, he proposed the two fundamental concepts of "Habitus" and "Field". The two concepts mean some relationship bundles, one field is composed of a string of objective history relationships among the positions attached to certain kind of power (or capital), while the habitus is composed of a string of history relationships deposited inside the individual body, with the forms of various physical and meta schemata as perception, judgment and action. Both are closely related, with full function only when merging into each other’s relationships. Thus the "Field" theory has united the individualism and holism of methodology, avoiding the defects of both and as well facilitating the advantages of both.This thesis carried out the research on the county-level government policy-making ability by applying the "Field" theory as research tool and the standardized analysis and empirical analysis. Firstly, it established the conceptual system and theoretical frame of county-level policy-making ability field; secondly, it combed and analyzed the development history and realistic operation of contemporary county-level policy-making ability in our country, defined the complexity of the field; thirdly, it performed dialectical analysis to the influence of contemporary county-level government policy-making ability field on the policy-making ability of the government; fourthly, it showed the new idea of boosting the county-level government policy-making ability by field optimization; and finally, it proposed the basic path for optimizing the county-level government policy-making ability field.The main findings of this study included:1. The county-level government policy-making ability field was the space for policy-making ability generation, with its configuration and operation being of critical impact on the policy-making ability. The county-level government policy-making ability field meant the social network space formed, based on certain capital, under the guidance of specific habitus and rules for the direct policy maker, policy-making participants and policy audiences, while with direct impact on the government policy-making ability. It is just in this field that the external elements as social psychology, social ideology and technology were able to functioning on the actors, and the capital was able to convert into realistic strength; while it is also in such field that the policy-making participants holding different capital were able to, under the restriction and guidance of certain habitus and rules (including value), select respective action plan based on different capital strengths and form a game relationship of either cooperation or conflicting from which. And the policy-making ability was able to generate and be presented during such game process. Therefore, the configuration and operation of the field was of crucial impact on the policy-making ability of the county-level government.2. The county-level government policy-making ability in present China is very complicated. After more than60years’development, the contemporary county-level government policy-making field in China has formed a relatively steady field body structure, field element structure and field operation process, and presents great complexity. Statically, this nature is reflected by the center-edge layout of field activity body structure, governmental dominance of field capital structure, governmental centralization of field rules system and habitus system; while dynamically, it is reflected by the closure and power centralization during the field operation process and thick human dominance.3. Single center field nature imposes severe negative impact on the county-level government policy-making ability. Single center policy-making ability field has complicated impacts on the county-level government policy-making ability, with most distinctive the negative impact. The negative impact indicates that under the rapid development of the economic community and the increasing complicacy of the public issues in prefecture community, such field is not able to maintain sustainable strong policy-making ability output, on the contrary, it is the significant source of the difficult-to-overcome problems for county-level government policy-making ability in present China.4. Promotion of county-level government policy-making ability should be recognized in the view of field optimization. Field is a network space with objective relationship, therefore the so-called field optimization means such a process of adjusting the capital distribution layout, rules system and habitus system and realizing the optimization of the relationship of the actors inside the field based on the "Double Existence" and "Initiative Generation" nature of the field and depending on the modern values as science, reasonable, democracy and legislation etc. The limit of thinking promotion of the traditional county-level government policy-making ability and the defects of single central policy-making ability field make it necessary for the promotion of county-level government policy-making ability, while the "Initiative Generation" nature of the field itself, the persistent motivation provided during the modernization of our country as well as the realistic foundation established during the development of county-level economic social and cultural development also make clear the theoretic and realistic feasibility of the county-level government policy-making ability field. It is necessary to reach the aim of optimizing field and promoting the policy-making ability by the field actor relationship optimization and with the specific path of the optimization of field capital, field rules and field habitus, on the basis of the reference of the experience and lessons of the developed countries on field optimization and policy-making ability promotion.The innovation of the study mainly reflects on:1. Innovation of methodology and epistemology. Based on the relationship methodology and epistemology of the field theory, this thesis carried out the study on the county-level government policy-making ability, with distinctive innovation compared to the methodology of the traditional holism and individualism.2. Innovation of conceptual system and theoretic frame. This thesis introduced "Field" theory into the study of county-level government policy-making ability, formed the conceptual system oriented by the county-level government policy-making ability field and developed the theoretic frame of the county-level government policy-making ability field. This conceptual system and theoretic frame defined the significant impact of the Field on the county-level government policy-making ability, and was the scientific understanding of the county-level government policy-making ability.3. Innovation of basic views. This thesis pointed that the county-level government policy-making ability was generated during the policy-making ability field operation process, with the field conditions having crucial impact on the policy-making ability. Therefore, this thesis proposed that the optimization of the policy-making ability field is a very important way to promote the policy-making ability of the county-level government. |
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