How does policy innovation diffuse among Chinese local governments? A qualitative comparative analysis of River Chief Innovation
| Published date | 01 February 2021 |
| Author | Yunxiang Zhang,Shichen Wang |
| Date | 01 February 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.1901 |
Received: 8 April 2020
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Revised: 2 December 2020
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Accepted: 17 December 2020
DOI: 10.1002/pad.1901
SPECIAL ISSUE ARTICLE
How does policy innovation diffuse among Chinese local
governments? A qualitative comparative analysis of River
Chief Innovation
Yunxiang Zhang
1
|Shichen Wang
2,3
1
College of Philosophy and Political Science,
Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, China
2
Global Studies Institute, University of Geneva,
Geneva, Switzerland
3
Institute for European Studies, Université
Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
Correspondence
Yunxiang Zhang, College of Philosophy and
Political Science, Shanghai Normal University,
100 Guilin Road, 200234 Shanghai, China.
Abstract
It is well‐documented that interlocal learning and competition could drive policy
innovation diffusion. However, their interconnection in non‐western regimes as
China is less explored. Utilizing the method of qualitative comparative analysis on
the case of River Chief Innovation, this article intends to explore the multiple
conjunctural causation of Chinese policy diffusion and the impacts of central
recognition. Our findings suggest that interlocal learning and tournament could
intimately stimulate Chinese policy diffusion through different combinations.
Different governments would adopt innovation for various reasons in a continuum
of diffusion mechanisms, involving the technical learning, the championship‐induced
learning, the mandate‐induced learning, and the innovation tournament. Hence,
despite the ongoing centralization under Xi, space for local spontaneous learning
remains. We also find that central recognition could activate the interlocal tour-
nament and extend the diffusion continuum to the tournament side. Therefore, it
facilitates policy diffusion toward governments that lack learning motivations and
promotes the local implementation of central preferences.
KEYWORDS
Chinese local government, policy innovation diffusion, policy learning and competition,
qualitative comparative analysis, River Chief
1
|
INTRODUCTION
Policy innovation is the adoption of a policy which is new to a
government (Berry & Berry, 1990). Local governments are essential
seedbeds and laboratories for policy innovations (Volden, 2006).
More essentially, driven by internal actors like governments' pref-
erences and capacities, and external factors like top‐down pressures,
bottom‐up advocates, and epistemic communities, innovation adop-
tion would even diffuse among jurisdictions (Graham, Shipan, &
Volden, 2013).
Earlier literature mainly focused on policy diffusion across
nearby governments, considering their political and demographic
similarity, convenience of information sharing, and networking
(Mintrom, 1997; Walker, 1969). However, recent studies indicate
that a systematic understanding of diffusion mechanisms may offer
greater insights (Graham et al., 2013). On the one hand, scholars have
focused on a diffusion effect motivated by the learning mechanism
(Boehmke & Witmer, 2004). The isomorphic policy needs and high
innovation capacities could stimulate governments to draw on
others' experiences (Füglister, 2012). The agency network could even
produce “policy wormholes” and facilitate their learning (Yi &
Chen, 2019). On the other hand, governments are also involved in a
regional strategic competition for the “Interested Individuals”
(Baybeck et al., 2011). One's decision‐making would not only take
others' current policies into account, but even strategically anticipate
their responses in the future (Baybeck et al., 2011). However, the two
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Public Admin Dev. 2021;41:34–47. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pad © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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