Policy Change and Expert Involvement in China

Abstract

Expert involvement is usually regarded as one of the causes of policy changes. However, how does the nature of policy change, in turn, influence expert involvement? This study constructs an analytical model by adopting and developing policy network and principal‐agent theories, suggesting that expert involvement can be regarded as the result of the inherent characteristics of policy change in the Chinese policy process. Two key characteristics of policy change, namely ‘loss embeddedness' and ‘knowledge complexity’, are employed to form four types of policy changes. Empirically, a comparative study with four policy change cases illustrates that Chinese experts adopt four behavioural strategies, such as linear access, outside‐in enlightenment, deprofessionalized campaign, and locked‐out, in different types of policy change. These policy change cases include the new‐type rural cooperative medical care system, the new urban medical care system, revocation of detention and repatriation system, and the new economically affordable urban housing policy.

Reform and Transition in Public Administration Theory and Practice in Greater China

“…In ‘Policy Change and Expert Involvement in China’, Zhu () examines the inter‐relationship between expert involvement and policy change across four case studies: the new rural cooperative medical care system, the new urban medical care system, the detention and repatriation system, and the new economically affordable urban housing policy. Drawing upon policy network and principal–agent theory, a framework for interpreting the role of stakeholders in policy change is developed that focuses on the embeddedness of actors in policy‐making networks and knowledge complexity to illustrate that the behaviour of Chinese experts is different from that seen in Western settings.…”

Chinese National Air Protection Policy Development: A Policy Network Theory Analysis

“…Various scholars have adopted policy network theory to study policy changes in China’s cases, such as education [ 53 ], eco-city [ 54 ] and urban housing [ 55 , 56 ]. Besides, interdependency among actors in the course of policy changing and implementation can be explored by policy network theory [ 32 ].…”

Explaining the variety in smart eco city development in China-What policy network theory can teach us about overcoming barriers in implementation?

“…PNT has been adopted by a great many scholars in Europe and North America to analyse urban development (Bache, 2000;Deas and Ward, 2000;McGuirk, 2000). More recently, the adoption of PNT in urban studies can also be traced in Asian countries, including China and South Korea (Woo, 2013;X. Zhu, 2013a;Y.…”

“…The German-Dutch school focuses on the meso-level and macro-level and analyses the national, provincial, municipal policy areas and corresponding policy actors (Zheng et al, 2010). In China, most scholars are inspired by the German-Dutch school to study urban policy in China (Pow and Neo, 2014;X. Zhu, 2013a;Y.…”