Key Factors And The Coupling Mechanism Of Policy Outbreak In China

The occurrence of policy diffusion is rooted in specific institutional context,and its evolution process and pattern characteristics are also shaped by the institutional context.The organizational structure and institutional arrangements of China’s authoritarian regime are very different from the decentralized structure of the US federal system.According to this logic,even though policy diffusion process based on different institutional backgrounds has many common traits as they act as a “spread”phenomenon,the two should still have potential variations.Surprisingly,studies of the mainstream contemporary policy diffusion theory,whether it is a detailed review of the metaphor of the “democratic laboratory” under the US federal system,or a deep description of the promotion process of the local innovation or policy pilot in China,generally view policy diffusion as an incremental political learning of decision makers to reduce uncertainty.And,correspondingly,they use the classical S-shaped diffusion curve to describe its gradual process characteristics.However,in some of the current Chinese local governance practice,the elapsed time of the innovation diffusion process is rapidly shortening and its overall diffusion process also shows a significant “outbreak” trend.If compared with the three-stage gradual diffusion process,this type of rapid and extensive diffusion process exhibits a two-stage non-incremental characteristic of “early sudden outbreaks-late slow saturation(with R-shaped diffusion curve)” or “early slow growth-late sudden outbreaks(with anti-R shaped diffusion curve)”.This study argues that,unlike the traditional incremental diffusion pattern,the non-incremental diffusion pattern that takes policy outbreaks as a typical pattern is drawing a new picture of China’s policy diffusion landscape,and the overall picture of Chinese policy diffusion should also be explained by both.In summary,the existing local research on policy diffusion has largely inherited the gradualist analysis logic and knowledge tradition of western policy diffusion theory research.To a certain extent,the systematic discussion on non-incremental diffusion phenomenon in Chinese context is still very limited.Therefore,the main purpose of this study is to reveal the formation mechanism of China’s policy outbreak,to explore the similarities and differences between the policy outbreak and the incremental diffusion model,and then to find the causes dynamics that induce these distinct policy diffusion patterns.The epidemiologic framework of “outbreak investigation” and the study of federal non-incremental policy diffusion provide us with useful inspiration.By transferring out of the epidemic outbreaks framework(Host-Vector-Agent),this paper constructs an analysis framework of China’s policy outbreaks with the core chain of “Policy Innovation-Diffusion Networks-Potential Adopters”.Qualitative comparative analysis provides an operational solution for case studies with small sample and multivariate,and it is especially suitable for research devoted to exploring multiple concurrent causal relationships.The QCA results of 25 cases reveal that: While vertical adoption,high feasibility,intensive intervention and integrative deployment strategy are necessary conditions for policy outbreaks,a parsimonious solution consisting in the latter three factors constitutes necessary and sufficient conditions for policy outbreaks,we term this as the “Chinese policy outbreak path driven by higher-level impetus”.Specifically,the standardization of innovation has effectively enhanced the feasibility of the source innovation,and the relative attribute advantage of source innovation based on this has powerfully counterbalanced the blocking effect of the potential adopter’ difference in ability on diffusion growth rate.Jointly,the vertical high-level impetus of central-level functional department and the horizontal inter-government on-site learning built a three-dimensional inter-governmental policy diffusion network which is necessary for large-scale policy diffusion.The intensive intervention of the central government in a short time and its holistic deployment strategy have further effectuated the substantial mobilization of potential adopters.In short,these key elements and their coupling effect play a vital role in Chinese policy outbreak practice.The policy diffusion research emerging after Rogers’ innovation diffusion theory was prominently branded with communications studies,which also makes traditional research relatively neglect the “decision-making link” of policy adoption due to the excessive focus on the “spread process” of policy diffusion.This study puts forward the view that policy diffusion is regarded as a process of the policy adoption agenda-setting,with an aim to taking policy diffusion research back to the perspective of public policy disciplines of policy process analysis.Existing Research on the decision-making process shows that the structural contradiction between information overload and attention bottlenecks has led to the disproportionate allocation of decision makers’ attention,which in turn determines the issue priority in agenda-setting.Following the logic approach of “situation-procedure-result” of the“attention-based view”,this study further attempts to construct a sub-analysis framework for the “Chinese policy outbreak path driven by higher-level impetus from the perspective of attention”.This study refutes that China’s policy outbreaks process,which taking “local initiative-central adoption and promotion-local adoption” as a general route,is essentially driven by the inter-government attention allocation process.In China’s pressurized system,“higher-level impetus” is the core stimulus to arouse and collect local attention and it plays the role of inter-government attention allocation mechanism.In terms of its evolutionary path,the competitive construction process of innovation performance will effectively attract and fix the superior attention to specific issue areas and their alternatives,and then the vertical transmission process of superior attention triggered by “higher-level impetus” induces the redistribution and aggregation of local attention,and finally with the intensive local policy adoption agenda-setting and decision-making processes,a complete policy outbreak loop is formed.As far as its functional mechanism is concerned,“higher-level impetus” can strengthen the vertical restraint and incentive effect,enhance the political legitimacy and issue salience of the source innovation,expand the scope of policy mobilization and policy communication network,and also construct the necessary coordination body of consultation and resources.Through tracking the diffusion processes of three typical cases and based on the cross-case comparative analyses,this study further demonstrates that the content and structure of “higher-level impetus” strategies are various.Due to their nuanced“political potential”,the response speed and concentricity of local policy adoption agenda-setting are also diverse.Briefly speaking,in China’s pressurized system,the“higher-level impetus” of central government pressed the “fast-forward key” of policy diffusion process,and triggered the “accelerating effect” of it.The“adoption-promotion” process driven by this plays a role of catalytic agent to induce large-scale policy diffusion.Simultaneously,the structural differences of the“political potential” contained in different “higher-level impetus” strategies determine“the starting point of fast-forward” and “the ratio of fast-forward”,which finally formed the distinct policy diffusion patterns and diffusion curves that are either incremental or non-incremental.