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| On the Structural Predicament of Overburdened Grassroots Governments from the Perspective of State Construction： Theory and A Case Study |
| Zhang Changdong Xia Jianghao |
| (School of Government， Peking University， Beijing 100871) |
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Abstract The overburden problem of grassroots governments has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years in both policy and academic circles. The existing literature has examined it from the perspectives of hierarchical systems， formalism， and grassroots governance capacity. This work argues that the issue of grassroots government burden should be further placed in the context of historical change， and reconsidered from the perspective of changes in the handing over of state power and the underlying state-building strategies. Through an in-depth case study of the L-town institutional reform and its actual effects， this paper finds that this reform， which aims to strengthen the capacity of the local government and reduce its burden， has not been effective， but rather has increased its burden. The reasons for this are that the institutional reform itself has released more responsibilities than powers， that the local government is unable to take over the devolution of powers， that the movement-based governance has weakened the professional governance， and that the autonomy of the village committees is insufficient. By virtue of the institutional drift theory in the context of the institutional reform and its actual effects， this paper further analyzes the underlying mechanisms and explores the theoretical implications for the micro-strategy of state building.
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Received: 22 January 2024
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2024, Vol. 63 
