Governance by Collaborative Network: Obstacles, Causes and Countermeasures Research

Management Science and Research March 2015, Volume 4, Issue 1, PP.12-18

Governance by Collaborative Network: Obstacles, Causes and Countermeasures Research Yijing Yue #, Xiong Yan The school of public management. Yunnan University of Finance and Economics, 650221, China #Email: 632931370@qq.com

Abstract By expounding the rise and characteristics of Governance by Collaborative Network, this paper analyzes the obstacles our government has on the way of carrying forward Governance by Collaborative Network, such as the over-intervention and manipulation of government, the under-developed society lacking of an ability and conscious of self-governance and self-service and about the operation problems of non-profit organization, and it also analyzes that the underlying reasons of these problems are the immaturity of our civil society, the serious unbalance of the development of the network node resulted from the not complete government transition, and Governance by Collaborative Network is lack of the trust and cooperation mechanism.

Combined with the case of “three center� construction in Dongcheng District of Beijing City, this paper proposes that efficient governance by collaborative network lies in fostering law ruling concept, perfecting institutional construction, reinforcing the cultivation of the civil society, speeding up the functional transformation of government, and building and improving the network nodes.

Keywords: Governance by Collaborative Network; Government Reform; Civil Society

The so-called Governance by Collaborative Network is that the government, private sector, and the civic society as actors of the society multi-governance, engage collective action to achieve a certain public purpose in the institutionalized management [1]. Since in the third Plenary Session of the 17th CPC Central Committee, speeding up transition of government function was proposed, effective government governance becomes more of the basis of realizing advantages of the market economy system with Chinese characteristics, and the concept of national governance is formally incorporated into the contemporary political discourse system of our country. As a new mode, Governance by Collaborative Network improves the efficiency of government governance and gradually develops into one of the more important governance ways. However, in consideration of the executive obstacles badly in need of removing urgently since this mode was applied into practical work, this paper analyzes the present trouble Governance by Collaborative Network faces now and the corresponding reasons, and educe feasible countermeasures.

1 THE RISE OF COLLABORATIVE NETWORK MODE After the 1990s, defects of the governance theory constantly emerged in the application, so Governance by Collaborative Network Theory arose at the historic moment with higher acceptance, and it was first applied in the private sector. Whereafter, In the early twenty-first Century, Goldsmith and Eggers put forward Governing by Network, and they thought collaborative network governance referred to the governance mode that a number of actors such as the third sector and profit organization intervened extensively to offer public service by the publicprivate sector partnership[2]. In view of this, collaborative network governance is gradually applied into the public sector areas as a kind of brand-new governance way.

In recent years, Governance by Collaborative Network gradually has caught the attention of domestic scholars.

Zhenming Chen thinks, governance is of collaborative network, and the process where a number of public action subjects such as the government departments and non-government sector (private sector, the third sector and - 12 www.ivypub.org/msr

individual citizens) cooperate with each other, share the public authority in the interdependent environment, and manage public affairs jointly, to promote and achieve the maximization of public benefits.

This paper draw a conclusion that collaborative network governance is a kind of multiple governance approach by which the government sector, together with private sector, the third sector, and individuals, in order to maximize the public interest, manage public affairs and handle public problems in the process of sharing rights and common learning. This theory effectively balances the interests of the government departments and non-government sectors, and absorbs and combines Social Self-organization Theory and the Theory of Government, so it is more and more widely recognized by scholars from all walks of life.

2 CHARACTERISTICS OF GOVERNANCE BY COLLABORATIVE NETWORK 2.1 Multiple and Equal Public Action Subjects.

Various powers constitutes the system of cooperative network, and the apparent characteristics of network mode rest with that the interdependent government and non-governmental sectors share resources and manage the public affairs jointly through communicating and compromising with each other. In order to win the interests the common action creates in the competition process, the two parties gradually give up patterns of the single selfish behaviour , and begin to seek cooperation and eventually tend to establish an organizational structure of long-term mutual reciprocity.

2.2 The Richer Governance Objects The purpose of Collaborative Network Governance is more to realize the public benefits and furnish public goods and services. It includes not only the handling of public issues and the management of public resources in the conventional sense, but also the collective transaction processing of the minority.

2.3 A More High-efficiency and Democratic Mechanism Different from the government governance approach, network mode tends to make the multiple action subjects take collective action strategy from bottom to top based on trust. Zhenming Chen thinks, “The supply of public goods and services should be based on its systematism for policy by collective actors.�[3] The rise of its system and policy of Governance by Collaborative Network are just from the collective learning and mutual consultation of the governance subjects.

2.4 More Diverse Governance Tools Pure mandatory tools are provided by regulations or public enterprises directly. It has plenty of advantages such avoiding the trouble of indirect supply, as low cost of the information, and in the meantime, it also has the disadvantages such as lack of flexibility, and information and resources cannot be fully shared[4]. A kind of more tolerant and resilient governance tool is needed to solve these problems. Collaborative governance, in policy tools, acts as mixed tools and voluntary tools or their organic combination. Shown in the following table, G. Bruce Doern and Richard Phidd[5] advocate that the families and communities be classified into voluntary policy tools, and that mixed policy tools include information, dissuasion and so on.

TABLE 1 POLICY INSTRUMENTS SPECTRUM [6]

Families and communities Voluntary organization The market

Information and planning Subsidy Taxation and user pay

Low Government intervention level Voluntary instruments

Hybrid instruments

Control Public utilities Provide direct service

High Compulsory instruments

3 THE OBSTACLES FACING PRACTICE OF PROMOTING NETWORK GOVERNANCE AND REASON ANALYSIS

- 13 www.ivypub.org/msr

In our country, many reforms have shown the government’s resolution to promote the governance theory for cooperative networks, such as to pursue the legalization by implementing the policy of administration by law, legal supervision; to reflect the trend of deepening democracy by expanding the group of decision-makers and regulating the administrative decision-making hearing system[7]. But many difficulties still face the collaborative network model in our country, mainly reflected in the poor performance and the short cooperation time, which finally place the partnership at risk.

3.1 The Obstacles of Promoting Governance by Collaborative Network In our country, there’s a serious imbalance between the power of government, society and citizens, which is embodied in the phenomenon of “big government, small society”.

1) The Over-intervention and Manipulation of Government Although reforms of SOE, government institutions, public affairs market-oriented reform have reflect the trend of functional transformation of government, there’s still excessive administration in the field of social management and the government still plays a major role.

2) The Under-developed Society Lacking of the Ability and Conscious of Self-governance and Self-service Since 2013, China has successively canceled and the decentralized 632 items of administrative examination and approval. The vitality of the market was greatly stimulated by a series of measures. From this we can see a trend of decentralization[8]. On the whole, however, the social organization is not yet mature and still need to improve the undertake ability, hasn’t fundamentally formed the mechanism of self adjustment and self-improvement which embodied that the enthusiasm in social management participation is not high[9].

3) The Operation Problems of the Non Profit Organization First, many NGO is not institutionalized without the legal status given by the state. A lot of NGO are still dependent on government and the competent business unit. Cooperation between inter organization still focus on achieving single target and lacks of a series of mature and systematic mechanisms. Secondly, problems are also reflected in the quality of non profit organization. Chinese folk organization report Blue Book (2013) pointed out that the folk organization in 2012 has reached 499000, year-on-year growth rate of 8.1%. Organization shown a trend of substantial growth after 2012, but a lot of non-profit organization only copied the western concept of value and the Western elite mode, without considering the situation of grass-roots organizations, which led to plight of the operation, such as the absence of responsibility, low operational efficiency, failure of supervision mechanism and the decline of social prestige[10].

3.2 The Reason Analysis 1) The Immaturity of the Civil Society The so-called civil society refers to a kind of social community which exists between state and family and occupied by a serious of independent groups within a country. These organizations are combined spontaneously by members of the society who dedicated to protect or improve benefits. They also enjoy autonomy like the authority[11]. For a long time, political history is the entangled history between government attempting to suppress the everydaygrowing citizen consciousness and citizens having strong concept of political participation[12].In today's China, citizen consciousness began to infiltrate into the process of social development, but at present, civic society development is not yet mature with problems of lack of democratic participation and the concept of realizing public interests.

There are two causes resulted in passive participation: first, as a rational individual, citizens will make tradeoff in political participation. If the person got the same public products and services without making decision, then he would take a negative attitude for principle of minimizing cost.Second, in the course of expressing preferences, people will be affected by the long-standing values of society. By creating the fundamental social values, the values orientation gradually internalized into people’s spiritual word, which reflected in a form of “sense of ownership” in - 14 www.ivypub.org/msr

voting participation[13].

2) The Seriously Unbalance of Network Nodes Development and the Incomplete Functional Transformation of Government.

The core of power steered the formation of institutions .As a controlling subject of public authority, government has the congenital advantage of making system. At present the institutional change in China has always followed a topdown administrative system. Optimization of the cooperation network governance itself is a reform to the existing administrative mode, the power and vested interests of sectors in the government as "economic man", they will block the decentralization Depending on the theory of complex system, network system is composed of active nodes which have decisionmaking ability and are different in quantity, quality and characteristics. As the smallest cell of network system, it’s the top problem for network management to connect them to present the overall maximum advantage[14].

At present, the construction of our modern government system has not been completed. With many restrictions, over-reliance on the government is going to be driven into a corner. All of these have caused the imbalanced development of the network node[15].

3) Governance by Collaborative Network is Lack of Trust and Cooperation Mechanism in China.

Preffer and Salnacik pointed out that with limited resources, there is no one organization can be self-sufficient. In order to acquire the resources mastered by external control, the organizations come up with the idea of cooperation to obtain the needed resources[16]. And the effective and long-term complementary of resources is based precisely on the cooperation and trust mechanism. Were both sides willing to share resources, they could achieve win-win competitive advantage.

Trust, as an important factor in cooperation mechanism, has a vital effect on the cooperation quality. Trust is the expectation and confidence for eliminating the opportunistic behavior, which plays a good role in reducing the transaction cost, guiding cooperation and resolving the conflicts[17]. This means that, owing to the lack of trust, network actors prefer to take opportunism and self-interest actions.

4 MEASURES PROMOTING COOPERATIVE GOVERNANCE MODEL Nowadays, the model of Governance by Collaborative Network has been put into practice nationwide. The establishment of "three centers" service platform in Dongcheng District is a typical case explaining pluralistic governance ideas. In late 2007, in order to follow through the spirit of The 17th National Congress - "improve the social management pattern with The Communist Party lead, government responsibility, the society coordination and the public participation"- the NGO Service Center and the Community Center were set up, and the two centers combined Administrative Service Center in Dongcheng District constitute a framework for government services.

Then the model quickly spread to other provinces. The "three centers" experience in Dongcheng District provides some feasible measures for promoting the model of Governance by Collaborative Network.

4.1 Foster Law Ruling Concept, and Perfect Institutional Construction Besides observed the Rule of Government Information Publicity strictly and the guided various society economic activities properly, the Dongcheng district government has provided policy guidance such as policy informing and policy seminars to facilitate understanding of the laws and regulations. Since the opening of the Fourth Plenary Session of the CPC Central Committee, the party has worked under the guidance of the rule of law. The law ruling concept is crucial not only in fostering citizenship and law-governing consciousness, but also in the maintenance of law authority[18]. On the one hand, as a controlling subject of public authority, the government should be bound by the law; on the other hand, the government should build a advantaged environment for public participation to ensure their order exercise of power by law. This requires a series of strict control in operating mechanism, law and institutions. First of all, those who make implement laws must have law ruling concept; secondly, it is essential to make scientific and operable institutions; finally, the establishment of appropriate supervision mechanisms is needed - 15 www.ivypub.org/msr

to guarantee all participants are under the protection of law.

4.2 Reinforce the Cultivation of Civil Society Public participation can ensure grassroots organizations to manage their own affairs[19]. Mature civil society is a safeguard for stable collaborative network operation. Only when civil society actively expresses interests and make full use of their advantages in resources, can cooperation network governance be achieved. Dongcheng District Citizen Center acts as a bridge linking government, social organizations and the public, amplifying citizens' political engagement. The Dongcheng District Citizen Center provides the following experience and inspiration: 1) Foster the Concept of Citizen Participation Changing government concept is the key to fostering civil society. The fostering of a civil society is significant to improving social organization and cooperative governance model. A mature civil society is a prerequisite to cooperation between the state and society[20].

2) Strengthen Institutional Construction and Protect Citizen Participation First, channels within the system should be created in order to enable reasonable and legitimate expression of citizens and to achieve win-win results with the government through the rule of law and negotiation[21]. Secondly, it is essential to improve the high level laws and institutions which can promote and safeguard civil society development.

3) The Construction of Participant Political Culture[22].

Dongcheng District has attracted citizens to participate in community philanthropy, volunteer service by establishing self-government organization. The act also plays an important role in strengthening selfless dedication spirit, building good social ethics and strengthening the national identity of citizens so that they can foster basic values of social awareness and direct democratic participation.

4) Expand Channels for Citizen's Participation in Social Governance, and Gradually Increase the Breadth of Social Participation First, the support for non-profit organizations should be increased and fostering non-governmental organizations is an important theme for public governance. Dongcheng District Citizen Center and Service Center not only provided free space for society organizations but also formulated Special Funds Management Methods for Fostering Civic organizations in Dongcheng District in which 100 million Yuan special funds was established and the funds are also raised by social donations and other ways to promote the development of civic organizations[23].

Second, it is essential to strengthen the use of hybrid tools and voluntary tools to encourage social capital to participate in public service delivery and promote social autonomy functions. Every year Bureau of Justice in Dongcheng District purchases social services from community service centers, Disabled Person's Federations and so on, forming a positive and effective interactivity mode.

4.3 Accelerate the Functional Transformation of Government, Build and Improve the Network Nodes.

Flexible and effective organization usually presents a mesh structure in which the goal is the center and multipoint within the network interacts with all of action subject, various information have the characteristics of wide collection channels, quick spreading and supporting various action subjects steadily [24]. Building a network node must proceed from the following three aspects: 1) Accelerate the Functional Change of Government Functions In Governance Network, the government should return rights to society and give public administration right to other social governance body authentically. The relationship between the government and the society is no longer traditional “command and obedience�, but an equal and collaborative relationship that is transforming the " government above the society' to a "government among the society"[25].

- 16 www.ivypub.org/msr

First, we must distinguish the boundaries between government, market and society. This requires that the government should first position functions reasonably. From a macro perspective of operation, the government functions can be divided into different levels and sectors. From the perpendicular perspective, the provincial government should focus on macro-control, economic supervision and control, etc. governments below provincial level should focus on grassroots public services. From the horizontal point of view, different departments should effectively deal with overlapped and decentralized responsibility; secondly, optimization of government structure is the foundation of effective governance so that it is essential to improve the allocation of government functions and working processes; finally, mutual restraint and coordinated mechanisms should be established with respect to a variety of executive power.[26] 2) Building Trust Mechanism to Promote the Construction of Public Relations.

After the formation of cooperative networks, maintenance mechanism becomes particularly crucial. To maintain the operation of it, all action subjects must understand each other's needs in the process of learning constantly negotiate and compromise in the formulation of the policy, forming a trust mechanism in culminating consensus. Dongcheng District Citizen Center has established electronic touch screen able to receive and store public opinions. The connectivity with Dongcheng District government network can ensure that relevant departments can obtain feedback in a timely manner, hence promoted positive interaction between the government and society. We can conclude that only by strengthening the interaction and communication between the upper and lower levels of governments, the mark and society, can we exceed restrictions and create new management methods.

5 CONCLUSION "Decisions of Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Some Major Issues Concerning Deepening the Reform" adopted at the Third Plenary Session of 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China profound states: "Scientific macro-control and effective governance is the inherent requirements for playing the advantages of socialist market economy." Promoting the functional change of government and strengthening the administrative through promoting cooperative governance model is a basic requirement for establishing a law ruling and service-oriented government. Therefore, collaborative network model has become a necessary requirement and the mainstream obviously in modern society. It will get improved gradually and have a profound impact on Chinese administrative system.

REFERENCES [1]

Shengyong Chen, Lanzhi Yu. “Network governance: A new public governance model” Political Science .2 (2012): 108.

[2]

Goldsmith Steven, William D. Eggers. Governing by Network: The New Shape of the Public Sector. Brookings Institution Press, 2004:3-5.

[3]

Zhenming Chen. Public Administration .Beijing: China Renmin University Press, 2005: 82-85.

[4]

Xing Ni. Public Administration. Dalian: Dongbei University of Finance and Economics Press, June 2011:225.

[5]

G. Bruce Doern and Richard W.phidd, Canadian Public Policy: Ideas, Structure, Process (2nd Edtion). Toronto: Nelson Canada, 1992:96-98.

[6]

Howlett M ichael and Ramesh M.. Studying Public Policy. Policy Cycles and Policy Subsystems Oxford: Oxford University Press 1995.p82.

[7]

Yinliang Yao, Bo Liu, Yingluo Wang. “The theory of network governance and local government to build a harmonious society to explore.” Chinese administration, 11(2009): 93.

[8]

Chaoxi Gu. “Developmental deficiencies of our society organizations and undertake capacity needs to be improved”. Chinese Government Network .September 24,2014. .http://www.ceta.com.cn/webceta/NewsDetail.aspx?ArcileD=15819

[9]

Wencheng Cai, Tinghe Wang. “National civil society: the growth of the social management of civil society Perspective”.

THEORY, in September 2012(5):105.

[10] Xiufeng Chen. “Nonprofit research organization to assess status of China from the cases – take the Educational Foundation University for example”. Xuehui. 2009(11):4.

[11] Sui Hu, Tiegeng Kang. “Foster civil society: A New Dimension of government capacity building of Hunan Business College”.

- 17 www.ivypub.org/msr

August 2007 (14)4th:19.

[12] Po Island Ikuo. Political participation. Beijing: Economic Daily Press, 1989 edition: 7.

[13] Wang Chengli, Public Management Case. China Mining University Press, 2013.04:9-10.

[14] Yingjun Tan. “Network Governance: New Strategy in the 21st century, the development of public administration” .Theoretical discussion 6(2009):140.

[15] Xuejun Liu. “Local government functions Research - A Case Study in Qingzhou”. China Ocean University. 8th April 2011.

[16] PFEFFER J,SALANCIK G. The External Control of Organizations: A Resource Dependence Perspective. New York: Harper and Row, 1978.

[17] Wenhong Zhao, Jianchun Shao. “Relationship participation, trust and cooperation effect: analysi: Evidence from Chinese nonprofit organizations and business cooperation”. Nankai Business Review, 2008,11 (3): 51-57 [18] Yuming Lian. “Social governance key fundamental in the governance of reasonable”. http://economy.gmw.cn/newspaper/201411/14/content_101991779.htm [19] Xing Ni. Public Administration. Dalian: Dongbei University of Finance and Economics Press, June 2011:327.

[20] Lingjun Meng. “Fostering civil society and building a harmonious society”. Chinese civil:21.

[21] Dognxue Han. “Construction of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the national governance system”.Yuejiang Journal,13th October 2014http://www.cssn.cn/mkszy/mkszyzgh/201410/t20141013_1360634.shtml [22] Chengli Wang. Public Management Case. China Mining University Press, 2013.04:11 [23] Lingyun Zhao. Dongcheng. “District build a new service platform, innovative social management system”. Chinese civil:53.

[24] Boying Sun, Zhuoqing Li. “Policy Network Governance: a new way of public intelligence”. Chinese administration, 2008 (5): 106-109.

[25] Yingjun Tan. “Network Governance: New Strategy in the 21st century, the development of public administration”. Theoretical discussion.2009(6):140.

[26] Xuewu Ling. “Enhance governance capacity Nanchang: Jiangxi Daily”. 10th March 2014. http://news.163.com/14/0310/01/9 MUJULUD00014AED.htm

AUTHORS 1Yijing

2Xiong

Yue, Yuncheng in Shanxi

Province, born in 1991,

In 2010

Yan, Kunming in Yunnan

province, born in 1971, in 2009-2014

September -2014 June studied at the

studied

Shanxi

and

(Kunming, China), received a doctor's

Economics (Taiyuan, China), obtained

degree in law.2004-2006 studied at

the degree of Bachelor of Economics. In

Kunming University of Science and

University

of

Finance

at

the

Yunnan

University

September 2014 – present studied at

Technology (Kunming, China) received

Yunnan University of Finance and Economics (Kunming,

Master's degree in management. The research direction is

China), obtained master of management. The research

culture industry management, social management and Cross-

direction

cultural management research.

is

culture

industry

management

and

social

management.

- 18 www.ivypub.org/msr