Source: Caixin.com
Author: Chen Kang (Professor of the School of Public Policy, State University of Singapore)
Like formalism, bureaucracy is very stubborn and very difficult to rule. It is a disease that leaders of China must face.As early as 1951 in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Communist Party of China conducted three anti -movement (anti -corruption, anti -waste, anti -bureaucracy).In the 1960s, Chairman Mao Zedong believed that there was a bureaucrat class in China. One of his purpose of launching the Cultural Revolution was to impact bureaucracy.However, bureaucracy is not only easy to rebound back, but sometimes it has become more and more intense.After the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, a new generation of leaders immediately promoted the anti -four -style movement (that is, oppositionalism, bureaucracy, hedonism, and extravagance).In recent years, especially at the critical moment of preventing and controlling the new crown epidemic, General Secretary Xi Jinping believes that the issues of formalism and bureaucracy are still prominent, and comprehensive review and targeted treatment must be carried out.
Why is it so difficult to rectify bureaucracy?Is there different types of bureaucracy?What targeted rectification methods do you need to use to get right?It is very necessary for these issues to effectively curb bureaucracy.
Two types of bureaucracy
Professor Martin King WHYTE of Harvard believes that bureaucracy can be divided into two different types.One is function bureaucracy, which is a bureaucracy derived from the basic function of the bureaucratic system.The other is the structural bureaucraticization. It is the bureaucracy brought about by the changes in social structure. It is strengthened with the expansion of government control, making people's lives more and more controlled by the huge pyramid bureaucratic organizationEssence
The bureaucratic bureaucracy is the ideal organization form designed by the founder of public administration, Max Weber, and its purpose is to establish a tool for implementing public policies.This tool must implement the government's regulations and instructions, and has professional, neutral, non -private, and foreseeable functions.Therefore, bureaucrats must handle administrative affairs in accordance with formal rules and procedures within the scope of fixed jurisdiction stipulated in the law, and establish and retain written document files to make everything they do.From the perspective of organizational functions, the sectarian system must be strictly divided into labor, stable and orderly to ensure the operation and operation of the bureaucratic system.From the perspective of neutral professionalism, this system strives to enable bureaucratic behaviors to be influenced by personal interests. On the one hand, a lifelong system is implemented and bureaucratic enjoys pensions.The salary of bureaucrats only reflects positions and age, which has nothing to do with workload and results.
Although these institutional arrangements can ensure administrative administration, transparency of government affairs, and neutrality of bureaucratic bureaucracy, it will inevitably bring functional bureaucraticization.Do things strictly in accordance with the law, rules, and procedures, and may evolve into Moje and not efficient.Lack of incentives will also bring more inertia as one thing, and pushing each other with vague jurisdictions and irresponsibility.What's more serious is that bureaucrats as a interest group will also seek benefits for themselves.Because income can only be promoted through job positions, bureaucratic conspiracy expands the organization, and more promotion opportunities are obtained by setting up more positions, bringing the consequences of bloated institutions and people floating in.
Structural bureaucraticization is that the government's power is continuously expanded, which has caused people's political, economic, cultural, and social life to be controlled by bureaucracy.As a result, the bureaucratic system is becoming larger and larger, and the consumption and distribution of more and more social resources is no longer mastered by the market, society and individuals, but is performed by government bureaucrats in the pyramid.Unrestrained power must cause abuse of power, dedication, fraud, fraud, and corruption, and these consequences often intensify with the expansion of bureaucratic control borders.
Deng Xiaoping listed 24 main performances of bureaucracy in an important speech entitled to the reform of the party and state leadership system in 1980, of which 9 of them were functional bureaucratic (rigid thoughts, stubborn rules, bloated institutions, people floating in things, dragging things, and dragging on things.Do not talk about efficiency, irresponsible, travel on document, push each other), 15 kinds of structural bureaucratic (high above, abuse of power, separate from reality, get rid of the masses, be full of official spirit, set the facade, speak empty words, do not keep credit, do not keep in training, train at all timesPeople, fight retaliation, suppress democracy, deceive and conceal, specialize in crowds, private bribes, greedy law).
Method for rectification of different types of bureaucracy
The two types of bureaucracy are very important for remediation of bureaucracy.The reason for functional bureaucracy is that bureaucratic lack of incentives, and the reason for structural bureaucraticization is that government power lacks constraints and the scope of bureaucratic system management and control has expanded.Two bureaucratic root roots are different, and the treatment plan is naturally different.
For functional bureaucraticization, new public management in the 1980s hopes to learn from the management methods of private sector to motivate bureaucratic and improve the efficiency of public sector.On the one hand, through the method of eliminating bureaucracy and introducing performance evaluation methods to motivate bureaucrats, on the other hand, the competition mechanism is introduced through project contracts, service outsourcing and other methods to break the monopoly of public services.However, internal competition is not obvious, and many public services are not suitable for outsourcing.Coupled with the output of the public sector, it is difficult to measure, and the performance indicators are not easy to set. The weakness of external efficiency control and the weakness of internal inspiration seem to be an unavoidable institutional cost of the bureaucracy.All in all, although the bureaucratization of the new public management rectification function has some results, there are many problems, and it cannot be regarded as a successful experience.
It should be noted that the bureaucraticization of the rectification function must be moderate and must ensure that the basic function of the bureaucratic system is not affected.In some countries, they have appointed more senior positions from the bureaucratic system while breaking the bureaucratic system. This approach affects the opportunities of internal bureaucratic promotion and leads to the loss of outstanding talents from government departments.Some scholars believe that some developed countries in Europe and the United States respond to losing their evidence in the new crowns, which is actually related to the loss of talents and the decline in the overall quality of bureaucratic bureaucracy.In addition, over -strengthening supervision and over -emphasis on the high unity of bureaucratic actions will inevitably produce more legitimate and inaction functional bureaucraticization.More importantly, the design of the bureaucratic bureaucratic system and the transparent system design according to law, the purpose is to restrict the bureaucratic abuse of power and restrict structural bureaucraticization.Destroying these functions under the name of opposing bureaucracy will produce more bureaucracy.At present, some regions of superior leaders often verbally explain their tasks to the first -level leaders. The leaders of the lower levels report to the leader to verbally perform the task. These things are not recorded and separated from the supervision radar.This behavior has destroyed the basic functions of the bureaucratic system, and provides convenience for the abuse of power, the fraud, and the deception.
The method of rectifying the bureaucratic structure is basically to reduce government intervention.In the wave of privatization in the 1980s, the public sector withdrew from public enterprises, and the original production activities of the public sector were borne by the private sector. The government also reduced or canceled the control of some industries.The public governance model that has appeared in the 1990s emphasizes the public's right to know and participation, and advocates the participation of stakeholders, social organizations and citizens.These reforms are limited by expanding the scope of the market and society to limit the boundaries of government power to achieve the purpose of rectifying structural bureaucraticization.Now it seems that the effectiveness of monopolization and eliminating monopoly is significantly significant. The long -term impact of privatization remains to be evaluated. The public governance model is still in the initial exploration stage.
In addition to rectifying bureaucracy, in addition to different types of treatment, it is also necessary to seize the main contradictions.Some national functional bureaucraticization is the main problem, and some countries are particularly structural bureaucratic.Under the planned economy, the Family Planning Commission decided to produce, educate, employment, consumption and other planning indicators, and people's lives were widely controlled by the bureaucratic system.
Deng Xiaoping deeply realized that structural bureaucracy is the main problem of China. In the early days of reform and opening up, he pointed out that the total root cause of bureaucracy is a highly centralized management system for economic, politics, culture, and society.Instead of control, inadequate, and unable to control.The main method of anti -bureaucracy is to cancel the planned economy and replace the gold by expanding the distribution of the market economyControl of the bureaucratic system.On the other hand, Deng Xiaoping also realized that the function of the Chinese bureaucracy is very uncomfortable, lacks strict administrative regulations and individual responsibility systems, lacks strict and clear regulations on the personal responsibilities and authority of bureaucrats and bureaucrats., System of retirement, retirement, and elimination.Together with Peng Zhen, Chen Yun and other leaders, he promoted the construction of the legal system in the 1980s, hoping to rectify bureaucracy by strengthening the function of the bureaucracy.
However, people who believe that the government intervention has a strong preference for inertia in ideology, and often ignores the bureaucracy cost of strengthening leadership and strict management.Although they hate bureaucracy, they inadvertently encourage structural bureaucraticization and oppose bureaucracy with bureaucracy.
On the other hand, restrictions on bureaucratic power inevitably be resisted by the bureaucratic class.Because of political treatment, social reputation, economic income, housing size, special car level, retirement benefits are all linked to the level and official position, everything is available.These privileges bring incentive consistency.
First of all, the superior has absolute decision to decide on the official position of the lower level, and the subordinates must absolutely obey the superiors.The behavior of the subordinates has expanded the self -explanation of the superiors and breeds the habit of dedication.
Secondly, the pursuit of informal treatment other than formal treatment leads to abuse of power, private bribery, and corruption law.
Thirdly, pursuing the higher administration level, which leads to private bribery, buy officials and officials, bully and conceal, set the facade, speak empty words, and do not keep credit.The level of administrative positions is also extended to public institutions, industry associations, state -owned enterprises.
The phenomenon of bureaucracy that is high in the top, the official spirit, is full of official spirit, is separated from reality, and is separated from the masses. Generally, it is considered to be ideological problems and working methods. The method of responding is to conduct education on the mass line.Some government inspection teams found that ministers and members of Singapore used one night to meet voters for one night and solve their problems for the masses.The delegation feels that this system is good, and it is a valuable experience in the mass line. After returning to China, this system is tried on the local area.But as soon as the leadership was busy, this system could not persist, and was quickly washed away.The reason why the Singapore Minister's system of taking the mass line is constant, the fundamental reason is that the ministers need to strive for voters' votes in the five -year election.Under the Singapore system, the minister must be elected as a member.The institutional arrangement of power for the people must ensure that the Singapore ministers must closely contact the masses and restrict the bureaucrats through the minister.It can be seen that opposition to bureaucracy must start with institutional innovation.
