Relationship between Local Government Management and Community Autonomy in China

Ying Liang, Associate professor of Social Work and Social Policy Department,
School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Nanjing University

Abstract

The relationship between local government management and community autonomy is not well articulated in the literature. The survey provides status with knowledge about the processes, structures of local government. Local government in China has emphasized numerous interactive features in manage community and resident. In the Yangzi Delta cities, new reform-oriented policies have emphasized autonomy as an important trend for improving governmental performance, and build a stronger popular method for local governments. Ultimately, the autonomy is effective because they work alongside other reforms in local society. By eliciting residents feedback and increasing governmental transparency, especially the relationship between local government management and community autonomy, the autonomy management have become important information sources and managed methods for government managers, but they are more likely to be effective in improving administrative operations, so the study of this paper is necessary.

1. Introduction

Currently, although a number of government bodies at central and lower levels went democracy in the very early years in China, the enhancement of the government’s transparency and efficiency, the convenient ways of transaction of business for the public and more efficient information exchange both internally and externally, automating office work, plugging local government into the combination between selection democracy and community autonomy. The local government proliferated changes offerings about a relationship. Like their counterparts at the national level, local governments placed huge numbers of government policies and handed with a right.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1 Materials

The authors and investigators had a normative empirical investigation in Nanjing, Shanghai and Hangzhou of Yangtze River Delta Region in 2011.

The survey considered with gender structure, age structure, occupational distribution and local distribution etc. And it also analyzed other factors, e.g. heterogeneity, accuracy degree, contents analysis, methods and experiences etc.

The entire survey used structured questionnaire, and distributed 2000 questionnaires, and collected 1611 questionnaires. Thus, the recovery rate was 80.5%. Finally, there were 1565 questionnaires after wasting 46 questionnaires, and then effective recovery rate was 78.3%. And final sample was as follows in Table 1 relied on the factors, e.g. gender, age, occupation, monthly income, education, political landscape, residence time and others.

2.2 Methods

Main Programs and Methods of Sampling

(1) Multistage Sampling

This method is also called segmented sampling that it consists of some stages to do rely on membership or hierarch of sampling elements. Multistage sampling suggests that it randomly selects a number of groups, and selects some subgroups from these large groups, and then selects step by step until selects the most basic element.

This survey firstly draws off district or county, selects streets or township from district or county, selects residents or village committee, and selects residents in sample according to multistage sampling.

(2) Stratified Sampling

Stratified sampling is also called type sampling; it firstly divides all units in total into a number of types or levels according to certain features or markers, e.g. gender, age, profession or geographical etc., then uses randomly selects or system sampling to get a sub-sample, finally combines these sub-samples into a total sample.

This study drew of district or county, streets or township and residents or village committee in Nanjing, Shanghai and Hangzhou of Yangtze River Delta Region in 2011, which used stochastic sampling and stratified sampling.

The resident’s samples investigated in residents or village committee used systematic sampling that firstly arranged units to have seriation and determined selected interval and places, and selected a species of sampling method in a unit. In systematic sampling, successively numbered total as 1-N, and calculated sampling distance (K=N/n, N is total units, n is sample size).

Variable and survey

This section used questionnaires to have a analysis, and then analyzed variable and its survey, which would analyze measurement dimensions and survey indexes of residents’ background variable, local government management variable and local community autonomy variable. For example, local government management variable was specifically divided into local government social security, community construction, local service government construction, local government social management function, and local government social management system etc., and it would consist of better specific index.

(1) Questionnaires

1. Steps

Firstly, make main point of questionnaire according to the research contents of references.

Secondly, design studied titles completely according to the research contents and finished the first questionnaire draft.

Thirdly, consult specialist after finishing the first draft, and obtain repaired suggestions from them and amended.

Fourth, there was a pre-testing. And this survey would provide 200 questionnaires, and it would have reliability and validity analysis as references to draw up official questionnaire.

Finally, draw up official questionnaire rely on the results of pre-testing.

2. Questions and Scale

This study used close-ended way to design questionnaire format when it surveyed local government social management variable and local community autonomy, which would consist of five-type scale and two-type scale. And this questionnaire had used more Likert-type scale. Berdi（1994）said that common people were difficult to have efficient recognition ability. Therefore, this study mainly used Likert-type scale to survey local government social management variable and community autonomy variable. In addition, it also used summated rating scales and four-type scale to survey local government social management variable and community autonomy variable.

3. The Forms and Scores of Questions and Scales

In this questionnaire, the questions were mainly single choice that every tester selected one or some proper answer relies on stated contents for every title. The survey asked people investigated to select a proper answer in five options, e.g. ‘Discontented greatly’, ‘Not very satisfied’, ‘Not to matter’, ‘Satisfied relatively’, ‘Disagree greatly’, ‘Not very disagree’, ‘Common’, ‘Inclined agreement’, ‘Agree greatly’ if measuring scale was Likert-type scale. The survey asked people investigated to select a proper answer in these two options, e.g. ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, ‘ Know’ or ‘Do not know’ and ‘Participation’ or ‘ No participation’, if measuring scale was summated rating scale.

The score of measuring scale had referred to five factors, e.g. ‘Disagree greatly’, ‘Not very disagree’, ‘Not to matter’, ‘Inclined agreement’, ‘Agree greatly’, and the scores were respectively 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 point in correct order. Then the score was zero when the selection was “No” for summated rating scale, and it was 1 when the selection was “Yes”. Therefore, the titles distribution of measuring scales were shown in Table 2.

(2) Variables and measurement

1. Residents’ background variables and its measurement

This study mainly gave analysis according to residents’ background variables, e.g. gender, age, education, occupation, political landscape, income, living time and area.

2. Social management variables of local government and measurement

Firstly, measure the degree of satisfaction for social security.

Secondly, measure the degree of satisfaction for community construction in Table 3.

Thirdly, measure the evaluation for local government services construction.

Fourth, measure and analyze the evaluation of social management function.

Fifth, measure the evaluation of social management system in Table 4.

(3) Local autonomy variables and measurement

Firstly, it measured the willingness of residents participated in community autonomy.

In addition, this survey also took part in measuring the status of community autonomy in Table 5, and gave two options (‘Participation’ and ‘No participation’).

Secondly, it measured the motivation of community autonomy in Table 6.

Thirdly, it measured the status that residents took participate in community autonomy.

At last, it measured the status to grow up in community autonomy.

3. Results

3.1 Binary Logistic for the influence that local government management impacted community autonomy

In Table 7, Model Chi-square was equal to 1093.014, and P=0.000<0.001, which had statistics. -2 times logarithmical value was equal to 1003.596, and Cox & Snell R2 was equal to 0.509. According to Nagelkerke R2 , all independent variables could be explained to the 68.4% of induced variable. That indicated that the resident satisfaction with the construction of social security had a good influence on whether resident want to participate the community election-rating activities. Correctly predicted percentage was equal to 87%. In all independent variables, residents were satisfied to various works and measurements for the pension services construction, increase communicable disease control construction, complete medical treatment, disease control and prevention, health supervision and law enforcement, public health emergencies treatment, public health information early warning monitoring and reporting network, and residents were satisfied to establish the system of responsibility of security and insure the measurement satisfaction on the provisions and medicine security, and residents were satisfied to the construction of urban ecological zones, ensure amenity order, improve green conservation, and residents were satisfied to expand the employment, solve the development trend of disadvantage groups. Residents thought that some independent variables of education had statistics significance whether the residents of induced variables want to participate community selection activities.

In Table 8, Model Chi-square was equal to 1007.109, and P=0.000<0.001, which had statistics. -2 times logarithmical value was equal to 1099.932, and Cox & Snell R2 was equal to 0.481. According to Nagelkerke R2 , all independent variables could be explained to the 64.4% of induced variable. That indicated that the resident satisfaction with the construction of social security had a good influence on whether resident want to participate the community election-rating activities. Correctly predicted percentage was equal to 85.2%. In all independent variables, residents were satisfied to various works and measurements for the pension services construction, increase communicable disease control construction, complete medical treatment, disease control and prevention, health supervision and law enforcement, public health emergencies treatment, public health information early warning monitoring and reporting network, and residents were satisfied to establish the system of responsibility of security and insure the measurement satisfaction on the provisions and medicine security, and residents were satisfied to the construction of urban ecological zones, ensure amenity order, improve green conservation, and residents were satisfied to expand the employment, solve the development trend of disadvantage groups. Residents thought that some independent variables of education had statistics significance whether the residents of induced variables want to participate residents evaluation on the community committees or local governmental activities.

In Table 9. According to Nagelkerke R2 , all independent variables could be explained to the 48.3% of induced variable. That indicated that the resident satisfaction with the construction of social security had a good influence on whether resident want to participate the community election-rating activities. Correctly predicted percentage was equal to 81.2%. In all independent variables, residents were satisfied to various works and measurements for the pension services construction, increase communicable disease control construction, complete medical treatment, disease control and prevention, health supervision and law enforcement, public health emergencies treatment, public health information early warning monitoring and reporting network, and residents were satisfied to establish the system of responsibility of security and insure the measurement satisfaction on the provisions and medicine security, and residents were satisfied to the construction of urban ecological zones, ensure amenity order, improve green conservation, and residents were satisfied to expand the employment, solve the development trend of disadvantage groups. Residents thought that some independent variables of education had statistics significance whether the residents of induced variables want to participate community residents meeting or owners committee.

In Table 10. According to Nagelkerke R2 , all independent variables could be explained to the 53.4% of induced variable. That indicated that the resident satisfaction with the construction of social security had a good influence on whether resident want to participate the community election-rating activities. Correctly predicted percentage was equal to 80.9%. In all independent variables, residents were satisfied to various works and measurements for the pension services construction, increase communicable disease control construction, complete medical treatment, disease control and prevention, health supervision and law enforcement, public health emergencies treatment, public health information early warning monitoring and reporting network, and residents were satisfied to establish the system of responsibility of security and insure the measurement satisfaction on the provisions and medicine security, and residents were satisfied to the construction of urban ecological zones, ensure amenity order, improve green conservation, and residents were satisfied to expand the employment, solve the development trend of disadvantage groups. Residents thought that some independent variables of education had statistics significance whether the residents of induced variables want to participate community consultation procedure of commission meeting.

3.2 Binary Logistic for the influence that local government management system impacted community autonomy

In Table 11. Model Chi-square was equal to 981.842, and P=0.000<0.001, which had statistics significant. Correctly Predicted Percentage was 86.4%, -2 Log likelihood was 1127.528, Cox & Snell R Square was 0.47, and all independent variables could be explained to 63.1% in induced variables. That indicated residents evaluation status on social management system had more influence on the residents willingness on participating community environment and health improvement, law and order maintenance and etc. In all independent variables, residents thought that government should establish perfect social benefits expression and coordination mechanism, social response mechanism, emergency events response mechanism, and thought government should complete overall, systematic, and standardization social policy based on modern justice idea, and thought government should establish overall incentive system framework (e.g. social publicity system, social hearing system and expert advice system), and thought government should adjust some independent variables such as social benefits relationship, express social benefits demands that had statistics significant on the influence for residents willingness of participating community environment and health improvement, law and order maintenance when government took social organization or groups into the main areas of social management.

In Table 12. Model Chi-square was equal to 862.383, and P=0.000<0.001, which had statistics significant. Correctly Predicted Percentage was 85.2%, -2 Log likelihood was 1259.066, Cox & Snell R Square was 0.427, and all independent variables could be explained to 57.3% in induced variables. That indicated residents evaluation status on social management system had more influence on the residents willingness on participating community environment and health improvement, law and order maintenance and etc. In all independent variables, residents thought that government should establish perfect social benefits expression and coordination mechanism, social response mechanism, emergency events response mechanism, and thought government should complete overall, systematic, and standardization social policy based on modern justice idea, and thought government should establish overall incentive system framework (e.g. social publicity system, social hearing system and expert advice system), and thought government should adjust some independent variables such as social benefits relationship, express social benefits demands that had statistics significant on the influence for residents willingness of participating community democracy and financial activities/ when government took social organization or groups into the main areas of social management.

In Table 13. Correctly Predicted Percentage was 80.4%, and all independent variables could be explained to 50.8% in induced variables. That indicated residents evaluation status on social management system had more influence on the residents willingness on participating community environment and health improvement, law and order maintenance and etc. In all independent variables, residents thought that government should establish perfect social benefits expression and coordination mechanism, social response mechanism, emergency events response mechanism, and thought government should complete overall, systematic, and standardization social policy based on modern justice idea, and thought government should establish overall incentive system framework (e.g. social publicity system, social hearing system and expert advice system), and thought government should adjust some independent variables such as social benefits relationship, express social benefits demands that had statistics significant on the influence for residents willingness of participating community activities such as “residents forum”, “community dialogue “, “residents matters”when government took social organization or groups into the main areas of social management.

In Table 14. Correctly Predicted Percentage was 80.5%, and all independent variables could be explained to 49.7% in induced variables. That indicated residents evaluation status on social management system had more influence on the residents willingness on participating community environment and health improvement, law and order maintenance and etc. In all independent variables, residents thought that government should establish perfect social benefits expression and coordination mechanism, social response mechanism, emergency events response mechanism, and thought government should complete overall, systematic, and standardization social policy based on modern justice idea, and thought government should establish overall incentive system framework (e.g. social publicity system, social hearing system and expert advice system), and thought government should adjust some independent variables such as social benefits relationship, express social benefits demands that had statistics significant on the influence for residents willingness of participating community affairs of hearing when government took social organization or groups into the main areas of social management.

4. Discussion

The study mainly shows that while the coefficient for residents’ autonomy in the transparency model of community is positive and significant, and the coefficient for transparency in the participation model is not statistically significant. The greater autonomy right will lead to more transparency in local government and community in China. However, there is no evidence that transparency from local government direct effect on the selection and autonomy in community with residents. Further, it is useful to compare the direct and indirect effects of local government influence on transparency and the open of community autonomy. The direct result is negative, while the indirect effect government influence on transparency through participation is positive. The compensation is almost equivalent, further supporting the general expectation that selection and autonomy are complementary strategies.

Therefore, the paper also show mixed support for the organizations is used by local government has no effect on autonomy frequency. In addition, the relationship suggests a security policy tend between local government and community.

In this paper, we illustrate how resident autonomy is supported or not in region of choice in managed community in China. Such an approach is unique as most analysts have focused only on ways to improve the relationship between the local government and community autonomy. While this relationship remains an important consideration, it should not dominate governmental policy discussions. In order for managed community long-term autonomy to exercise meaningful choice, policy and program planners need to (1) recognize how community long term autonomy systems cultivate paternalistic attitudes of residents’ and local government and (2) develop appropriate responses that foster the functional instruction, personal independence among increasingly economy and society and selection. The need to understand how community long term autonomy systems respect the autonomy is important for public policy makers for three reasons. The first reason is the nature of long-term autonomy and the residents who typically need these policies.

A second reason why it is important for local policy makers to understand how community long term autonomy systems respect the autonomy of residents is that the democratic development involves distributing certain risks for government and its responsibilities that differ from traditional institutional forms of local autonomy. Policy makers and program leaders need to become better informed about the local complexities that community autonomy poses for residents in community and village in order to develop a local system.

Finally, the third important reason how to understand community long-term autonomy system respects resident autonomy of in local society. Indeed, some managers of local government have suggested that community long-term autonomy expansions should be justified on the basis of selection and democracy rather than power avoidance. It is possible that community long term autonomy systems that respect residents by having selected rights with more meaningful choices may be more expensive than current approaches. Yet this is unlikely, since residents typically want more democracy autonomy.

Larger autonomy appears to be more able to undertake selected activities, and relationship is associated with democracy. Specific to the relationship model, perceptions of the respondent that autonomy leads to better policy and decision-making is positively associated with participation.

This finding may indicate that local government managers have an effect on the level of participation pursued by the policy about community autonomy.

5. Conclusion

This paper has examined the relationship between local government management influences and community autonomy that affect them. Findings generally show that selection and autonomy levels vary by department, e.g. community development, local government participation, other departments etc. And the paper also showed that there are differences in the local government and community autonomy across higher relative levels of democracy and participation.

Acknowledgements

This paper is supported in part by National Natural Science Foundation Youth Project (70903002) and National Natural Science Foundation General Project (71173099), supported by Trans-Century Training Program Foundation for Talents of Humanities and Social Science by the Ministry of education of the people’s Republic of China (NCET-11-0228) 2011, supported by Jiangsu Green-blue Project 2010, and supported by Great Subject  Research Project on the Philosophy and Social Science of  the Ministry of education of PR China (10JZD0033).

References

Alter, R., Lewiecki, M., Renz-WhitmoreMand Albright, D. (2008). Accountable public involvement: Partnership approach to proposed transportation project. Transportation Research Record. Journal of the Transportation Research Board. 2077 46–53.

Bickerstaff, K. and Walker, G. (2001). Participatory local governance and transport planning. Environment and Planning. A 33(3) 431–451.

Bovens, Map (2005). Public accountability. In: Ferlie, E., Lynne, L. and Pollitt, C. (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Public Management. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bozeman, B. and Straussman, J. (1990). Public Management Strategies: Guidelines for Managerial Effectiveness. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Coglianese C. (2009). The transparency President? The Obama administration and open government. University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Coglianese, C., Kilmartin, H. and Mendelson, E. (2009). Transparency and public participation in the federal rulemaking process: Recommendations for the new administration. George Washington Law Review. 77 924–972.

Curtin, D. and Meijer, A.J. (2006). Does transparency strengthen legitimacy?. Information Policy. 11(2) 109–123.

Downes, E.J. and McMillan, S.J. (2000). Defining interactivity: A qualitative identification key dimensions. New Media and Society. 2(2) 157–179.

Etzioni A. (2010). Is transparency the best disinfectant?. Journal of Political Philosophy. 18(4) 389–404.

Heald, D. (2006). Varieties of transparency. In: Hood, C. and Heald, D. (eds.) Transparency: The Key to Better Governance?. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Henderson, L.J. (2007). Metropolitan governance: Citizen participation in the urban federation. National Civic Review. 79(2) 105–117.

Ho, Atk. (2002). Reinventing local governments and the e-government initiative. Public Administration Review. 62(4) 434–444.

Hood, C. (2006). Transparency in historical perspective. In: Hood, C. and Heald, D. (eds.) Transparency: The Key to Better Governance?. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Jennings, M.K. and Zeitner, V. (2003). Internet use and civic engagement: A longitudinal analysis. Public Opinion Quarterly. 67(3) 311–334.

Jun, K.N. and Weare, C. (2010). Institutional motivations in the adoption of innovations: The case of e-government. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. Available online 9 June 2010.

Knott, J.H. (1993). Comparing public and private management: Cooperative effort and principal – agent relationships. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. 3(1) 93–119.

Laffont, J.J. and Mordimort, D. (2002). The Theory of Incentives: The Principal – Agent Model. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

La Porte, T.M., Demchak, C.C. and Friis, C. (2001). Webbing governance: Global trends across national-level public agencies. Communications of the ACM. 44(1) 63–68.

Lewis, J.R.T. (2010). Tide of security secrecy, tide of transparency. In: Shea C.M. and Garson G.D. (eds.) Handbook of Public Information Systems. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.

McMillan, S. (2000). Interactivity is in the eye of the beholder: Function, perception, involvement and attitude toward the web site. In: Shaver, M.A. (ed.) Proceedings of the American Academy of Advertising. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University.

Masters Z., Macintosh A. and Smith E. (2004). Young people and e-democracy: Creating a culture of participation. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. 3183 15–22.

Meijer, A.J. (2009) Understanding computer-mediated transparency. International Review of Administrative Sciences. 75(2) 255–269.

Moe, T.M. (2006). Political control and the power of the agent. Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization. 22(1) 1–29.

Norris, P. (2001). Digital Divide: Civic Engagement, Information Poverty, and the Internet Worldwide. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Piotrowski, S.J. and Borry, E.L. (2009). Transparency and local government websites. In: Reddick, C.G. (ed.). Handbook of Research on Strategies for Local E-Government Adoption and Implementation: Comparative Studies. Hershey, NY: Information Science Reference.

Pratt, J.W.P. and Zeckhauser, R.J. (1991). Principals and Agents: The Structure of Business. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Pyndick, R.S. and Rubinfeld, D.L. (1991). Econometric Models and Economic Forecasts, 3rd edn. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Roberts, N. (1997). Public deliberation: An alternative approach to crafting policy and setting direction. Public Administration Review. 57(2) 124–132.

Roberts, N. (2004). Public deliberation in an age of direct citizen participation. American Review of Public Administration. 34(4) 315–353.

Romzek, B.S. and Dubnick, M.J. (1987). Accountability in the public sector: Lessons from the Challenger tragedy. Public Administration Review. 47(3) 227–238.

Rowe, G. and Frewer, L.J. (2000). Public participation methods: A framework for evaluation. Science, Technology and Human Values. 25(1) 3–29.

Tolbert, C.J. and Mossberger, K. (2006). The effects of e-government on trust and confidence in government. Public Administration Review. 66(3) 354–369.

Welch, E.W. and Fulla, S. (2005). Virtual interactivity between government and citizens: The Chicago Police Department’s citizen ICAM application demonstration case. Political Communication. 22(2) 215–236.

Welch, E.W. and Wong, W. (2001). Global information technology pressure and government accountability: The mediating effect of domestic context on website openness. Journal of Public Administration Research & Theory. 11(4) 509–538.