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Policy Sciences

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01.09.2014

Experiment-based policy making or conscious policy design? The case of urban housing reform in China

verfasst von: Ciqi Mei, Zhilin Liu

Erschienen in: Policy Sciences | Ausgabe 3/2014

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Abstract

The public policy literature has long debated whether policy change results from conscious policy design or is contingent upon a political process involving both state and non-state actors. An experiment-based policy-making model based on China’s experience attempts to reconcile such debate by arguing that policy makers can consciously make policies without deliberately designing them. That is, policy makers can encourage or initiate multiple small-scale experiments that will cumulatively translate into incremental policy changes. Through a case study of urban housing policy changes in China, this paper investigates the underlying logic of incremental policy changes, specifically the role of policy makers in successive policy experimentation. Our case study illustrates that the role of local policy experimentation has been overestimated because the central government controls the experimental variables, judges what constitutes the success of the experiment, and chooses which experiments are replicated at the national level.

Vorheriger Artikel Market imperfections, government imperfections, and policy mixes: policy innovations in Singapore

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Titel: Experiment-based policy making or conscious policy design? The case of urban housing reform in China
verfasst von: Ciqi Mei
Zhilin Liu
Publikationsdatum: 01.09.2014
Verlag: Springer US
Erschienen in: Policy Sciences / Ausgabe 3/2014
Print ISSN: 0032-2687
Elektronische ISSN: 1573-0891
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-013-9185-y

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