Original
Bureaucratic Incentives and Government Responsiveness in China
Abstract
ABSTRACT Citizen complaints have long been considered an important channel of communication between citizens and officials in authoritarian regimes. Existing explanations for responsiveness to citizen complaints in China, however, do not adequately consider the role of local bureaucratic incentives as a driver of responsiveness. This paper seeks to explain local government responsiveness to citizen demands through this lens. Original data of citizen complaints and government responses from a Chinese prefecture and its subordinate counties demonstrate that lower level officials are more likely to respond to citizen complaints when monitored by their superiors. On the other hand, they are less responsive on unmonitored forums. Thus, oversight by higher level officials may be important in increasing actual government responsiveness; citizen complaints alone may not be enough to spur government action. While recent studies emphasize authoritarian accountability arising through quasi‐democratic institutions, this paper suggests incentives of local political actors may condition the effectiveness of these institutions.
中文
中国的官僚激励与政府回应性
摘要
公民投诉长期以来被视为威权政体中公民与官员之间的重要沟通渠道。然而，现有关于中国对公民投诉回应性的解释并未充分考虑地方官僚激励作为回应性驱动因素的作用。本文试图从这一视角解释地方政府对公民诉求的回应性。来自中国某地级市及其下辖县的公民投诉与政府回应的原创数据显示，下级官员在受到上级监督时更可能回应公民投诉；反之，在未受监督的论坛上，他们的回应性较低。因此，上级官员的监督可能对提高实际的政府回应性至关重要；仅靠公民投诉可能不足以促使政府采取行动。尽管近期研究强调通过准民主制度产生的威权问责，本文表明地方政治行为者的激励可能制约这些制度的有效性。
关键词
官僚激励、政府回应性、公民投诉、威权问责、地方官员、上级监督、中国、准民主制度