治理内部化: 基层区划撤并的效能及其限度

Internalizing Governance Effectiveness and Limits of the Consolidation of Grass-roots Divisions

摘要:

乡镇、 行政村和村民小组撤并的本质是治理内部化的实践, 即由彼此构成外部关系的多个区划单元转向内部关系的单一区划单元, 以期降低基层治理与发展过程中的交易费用。 基于四川省基层区划撤并的案例考察发现, 一方面, 改革直接导致区划单元减少, 数量过剩的行政和自治组织领导需要凭借竞争方式产生, 从而提高了组织的素质能力; 区划半径的扩大为基层赋权构设了条件; 区划制度壁垒的消解降低要素资源的配置成本。 这项改革总体上实现了降低各类交易费用的预期目标。 另一方面, 在既定的基层政治体制、 产权结构、 社会基础等条件约束下, 基层区划撤并在一定程度上抬升了外部约束薄弱的乡村组织权力, 助推了要素资源配置的行政化方式, 并诱致新区划空间内部制度建设和情感认同的非均衡性。 所以, 治理内部化实践降低了若干项治理与发展交易费用的同时, 在体制、 产权等结构未发生实质转型的情况下, 短期内实则追加了部分交易费用。 由此, 未来基层区划改革应兼顾拆分、 撤并等类型的技术原则以及拓深改革内容。

Abstract:

In China, the scope of grass-roots division and consolidation includes townships (乡镇), administrative villages (行政村)and village groups (村民小组). Over the recent decades, the consolidation of grass-roots divisions has been continuously carried out nationwide or locally, showing diversified reform effects. The main objective of this paper is to explain why this reform deviates to varying degrees from the expected goals. In response to this reform practice, our team conducted a two-year field survey to collect data about government operation, market element allocation, system construction and other types of information before and after the reform, including interview records, questionnaires, policy texts, etc. On this basis, we try to put forward the _“Governance-Internalization_” analysis framework to explain the diversity of the realization of reform goals. The research shows that the essence of township administrative village and villager group consolidation is the practice of _“Internalizing Governance_”, which involves the integration and reconstruction of organizations, elements and systems. In other words, _“internalizing governance_” is the transformation of multiple division units that form external relations with each other into a single division unit with internal relations , in order to reduce the uncertain cost in the process of grass-roots governance and development. It is found that the reform directly leads to the reduction of division units, and the leadership of the excessive number of administrative and autonomous organizations needs to rely on competition, thus improving the quality and ability of the organizations. The expansion of the radius of the division is the construction condition of the grass-roots empowerment. The elimination of the institutional barriers of division reduces the allocation cost of resources. The reform has generally achieved the expected goal of reducing all types of costs. Of course, under the constraints of the established grass-roots political system, property rights structure, social foundation and other conditions, the division and consolidation have to some extent elevated the power of administrative and autonomous organizations with weak external constraints. The combination of multiple division units also makes the property rights of component elements more ambiguous and complicated, which provides gaps for the administrative ways of resource allocation among the components. Moreover, such forced reform is easy to induce the imbalance of institutional construction and emotional identity within the new division space, thus increasing the possibility of potential costs. Therefore, while the practice of _“internalizing governance_” reduces part of governance and development costs, it actually increases costs in the short term under the condition that the structure of system and property rights have not undergone substantial transformation. Finally, we suggest that the future reform of China_'s grass-roots division should take into account multiple types of technical principles such as splitting and merging, and deepen the reform content. And the technical principles and content of these reforms should be selected and practiced based on the logic premise of people_'s livelihood values.