A Causal Supplement To Punctuated Equilibrium: Exploring The Influence Factors And Types Of Policy Punctuations Using Qualitative Comparative Analysis In China

The punctuated equilibrium framework established in 1990s,which is based on the perspective of the interaction between the issue definition and the agenda setting,combinates the attention of politics,policy subsystems,issue diffusion and preference maximization theory.The forms of policy change depend on the interaction between the policy venue and policy images:The negative feedback by the subsystem politics makes the policy into Monopoly while the positive feedback by the macro politics prompts the collapse of policy monopolies,the long-term gradual and the short-term punctuated change could be seen as the two characters of policy changes.However,the framework itself is faced with the criticism of an unclear causal mechanism and as a "factual metaphor".the demand for perfecting the theory requires us to search for the causality inference.This paper sorts out the basic theoretical perspectives of punctuated equilibrium,and reviews the related research about the "policy punctuation" and its cause.Based on the theory of neo-institutionalism,and focus events,,this paper initially develop a two-dimensional framework of "focus-institutional" adaptation,and futher elaborate on four aspects:policy issues,policy values,policy institutions,and policy environment.And the model is specified as six elements as "focus trigger-foucs fusion-policy image-issue monopoly-key individual-media mobilization".On the basis of the constructed model,by using the clear sets qualitative comparative analysis(csQCA),this paper selects 40 cases in the four policy areas including social policy,economic policy,political policy,and technology,culture and education policy as research samples to analysis the combination of impact factors and types of policy punctuations in china.The results show that,there are a total of eight types of policy interruptedchanges,including"focus-network","mobilization-absorption","foucs-attent ion","issue-image","single-focustriggering","multi-focusesfusion"and"image-adapati on".Among them,the negative policy image as a necessary condition,the policy experiment in the policy choice and the policy termination in the policy life cycle could be seen as the important features of policy punctuations in china.This paper attempts to embed the six-influencing-factors model of policy punctuations into the classic punctuated equilibrium framework as a try of complementing the general casual mechanism for policy breaks.