Enlisting citizens: forging the effectiveness of policy implementation in local China

Abstract This article examines how the Chinese government increases the effectiveness of policy implementation by resorting to citizen participation. Based on an in-depth case study of the waste classification policy implementation in county T, province Z, this article demonstrates three citizen-enlistment strategies applied in the local state: (1) local-elites enlistment, (2) social norms innovation, and (3) blurring the role boundaries between citizens and frontline bureaucrats. This article also illustrates the citizen-enlistment motivations of governments: (1) to increase the dynamic and controllable working staff in policy implementation, (2) to maintain a flexible social control system to reduce accountability pressure, and (3) to overcome information asymmetry by holding citizens responsible for their suggestions and claims. In general, the citizen-enlistment strategies, to some extent, facilitate the effectiveness of policy implementation in the local state.