Research On The Dynamic Mechanisms Of The Transformation Of Local Government Functions

The transformation of local government functions is the core issue in the reform of local government. The issues, such as the reform of local administrative system, the innovation of administrative method, should focus on the transformation of local government functions and serve it. In the study of the transformation of local government functions, academic research focuses on the target model of the transformation of local government functions and its implementation, but research on the dynamic mechanism of local government functions transformation is relatively insufficient, which is precisely the current problems that should be made breakthrough by local government.Institutional change is the essence of the transformation of local government functions. In the transformation of local government functions, there are two different ways:one is the top-down reform which is driven by central government; the other is a spontaneous reform of local government. The two different ways of function transformation are, in fact, two kinds of different ways of institutional change. The former is the imposed institutional change introduced by the central government, and the latter is essentially the induced institutional change which local government initiatives. There is different action logic behind the two different ways of functions transformation. From the reality of the transformation of local government functions, the local government is a far cry from the true sense of limited government, the service-oriented government and the law government, whose root is the lack of motivation of the transformation of local government functions. Because from the perspective of behavioral science, motivation is the direct factor of behavior, thus the analysis of the transformation of local government functions have to analyze the dynamic mechanism of the transformation of local government functions. Dynamic mechanism is a complete system composed by three elements of "environment, the action mechanism of environment on the system and the system response". Among them, environmental change is the cause, the action mechanism of environment on the system is the key, and the system response is the result. The process that dynamic mechanism runs is, first of all, the environment changes, and then passes this change to the system through the action mechanism of environment on the system, and the system makes a rational choice after realizing the potential impact of such changes on their own interests, namely produces a certain behavior motivation. The main framework of this paper comes into being by incorporating the constituent elements of the dynamic mechanism into the analysis of the transformation of local government functions. Specifically, in the dynamic mechanism of the top-down transformation of local government functions, the external environment mainly refers to the sustain promotion for reform of central government, the means that the central government acts on local government includes the selection and appointment system of cadre, appraisal system, fiscal and taxation system, supervision system and ideological education, and the reaction of the local government includes local government awareness of the functional transformation measures, the adjustment of interest, the cognition of action mechanism of the central government on the local government and the rational choice based on the cognitive basis. In the dynamic mechanism of the transformation of local government functions from bottom to top, the external environment that local governments faced mainly include the economic environment, political environment, social environment and cultural environment, the means that external environment effect on the local government primarily includes the interest expression mechanism, the democratic restricting mechanism, supervision mechanism and incentive mechanism, and the reaction of local governments include the cognition of external environmental changes, the cognition of action mechanism of the external environment on the local government, and the cognition of costs and benefits brought by the reform and the rational choice based on the cognitive basis.There are three main problems in the dynamic mechanism of the transformation of government functions from top to bottom:firstly, the central government's reform efforts and the match between the reform and the local government; secondly, the central government's various action mechanisms on local government still are not perfect; thirdly, there are cognitive defects and opportunism behavior in the local government. In the dynamic mechanism of the transformation of government functions from bottom to top, there are also three main problems:firstly, the external environment, such as the market economy and civil society, lags behind relatively; secondly, the restricting chain of the external environment on the local government has not yet been fully established; thirdly, there are cognition defects and restriction of innovation ability of local government. In the optimization of the motivation mechanism of the transformation of local government functions, in fact, there are two different approaches:firstly, optimizing the cognition and interests structure of the local government; secondly, optimizing the external environment and the action mechanism of the environment on the local government. The focuses of the two approaches are different:one focuses on internal change, and the other one focuses on external control, but all roads lead to Rome. They are indispensable measures that optimize the dynamic mechanism of local government functions transformation. In terms of specific measures, they are put forward correspondingly in view of the problems existing in the two kinds of dynamic mechanisms.Focusing on the dynamic mechanism of the transformation of local government functions and basing on administrative ecological theory and institutional change theory, the paper analyses the elements of the dynamic mechanism of the transformation of local government functions and their problems in operation, and puts forward the corresponding optimization measures. In logic, the paper strictly follows the basic pattern of "raise problems, analyze problems and solve problems". Specifically:The first chapter is introduction, which mainly introduces the research background, the current research status in this field, the analysis framework, research methods, innovations and deficiencies of this paper.The second chapter is the related concepts and theoretical basis of the dynamic mechanism of the transformation of local government functions. Firstly, the core concepts, such as local government, local government functions, dynamic mechanism, are defined; secondly, the theoretical basis of this paper--the administrative ecological theory and the institutional change theory are explained; thirdly, the basic assumption of this paper--"Economic Man" is discussed. Through the definition of core concepts, interpretations of the theoretical basis and basic hypothesis, the basic framework for later analysis is established.The third chapter is the way of the transformation of local government functions and the generation process of the dynamic mechanism. This chapter firstly distinguishes the two different ways of the transformation of local government functions--the transformation of local government functions from top to bottom and the transformation of local government functions from bottom to top. Secondly, the research focuses on the dynamic mechanism of the transformation of local government functions, and respectively analyzes the generation process of the two kinds of the dynamic mechanism of the transformation of local government functions and their advantages and disadvantages.The fourth chapter is the present situation of the transformation of local government functions and the problems existed in the dynamic mechanism. First of all, from the perspective of the public, this chapter analyzes the prefecture-level and county-level general public's perception of the transformation of government functions by means of empirical research. Secondly, the problems of the dynamic mechanism of the transformation of local government functions in the actual operation are analyzed from three aspects of "environment","the action mechanism of environment on the local government"and "local government's cognition and choice".The fifth chapter is the suggestion of optimizing the dynamic mechanism of the transformation of local government functions. Firstly, this chapter analyzes the basic ideas of optimizing the dynamic mechanism of the transformation of local government functions, namely combining the optimization of the cognition and interest structure of local government with the optimization of the external environment of the transformation of local government functions and its restricting mechanism. Secondly, the chapter puts forward the corresponding optimization suggestions respectively according to the problems which the dynamic mechanism of the transformation of local government functions has in actual operation.The last part is the conclusion, which summarizes the main conclusion of the paper and analyzes the direction of further research.