Dongmin Yao, Jing Li, Yi-Jung Chen, Qiunan Gao, Wen Yan
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引用次数: 8
Abstract
COVID-19 has created long-lasting yet unprecedented challenges worldwide. In addition to scientific efforts, political efforts and public administration are also crucial to contain the disease. Therefore, understanding how multi-level governance systems respond to this public health crisis is vital to combat COVID-19. This study focuses on China and applies social network analysis to illustrate interactive governance between and within levels and functions of government, confirming and extending the existing Type I and Type II definition of multi-level governance theory. We characterize four interaction patterns—vertical, inter-functional, intra-functional, and hybrid—with the dominant pattern differing across governmental functions and evolving as the pandemic progressed. Empirical results reveal that financial departments of different levels of government interact through the vertical pattern. At the same time, intra-functional interaction also exists in provincial financial departments. The supervision departments typically adopt the inter-functional pattern at all levels. At the cross-level and cross-function aspects, the hybrid interaction pattern prevails in the medical function and plays a fair part in the security, welfare, and economic function. This study is one of the first to summarize the interaction patterns in a multi-level setting, providing practical implications for which pattern should be applied to which governmental levels/functions under what pandemic condition.
期刊介绍:
The American Review of Public Adminstration (ARPA) aspires to be the premier academic journal in the field of public affairs and public administration. As a peer-reviewed journal with the combined goals of advancing the knowledge of public administration and improving its practice, ARPA features articles that address rapidly emerging issues in public administration and public affairs and is open to both traditional and nontraditional apporaches. ARPA has no methodological bias other than a preference for an analytical approach to the issue(s) being addressed. Of particular interest are theory-based empirical research, commentaries on pressing issues, reviews or syntheses of research, and conceptual/theoretical discussions on or over the boundaries of traditional public administration.