Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-wzw2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-22T14:51:59.857Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Policy Learning in Governing Complex Technologies: The Pendulum Swing of China's Central Government

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2024

Ziying Jiang  and
Kaidong Feng
Ziying Jiang
Affiliation:
School of Public Affairs, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China
Kaidong Feng*
Affiliation:
School of Government, Peking University, Beijing, China
*
Corresponding author: Kaidong Feng; Email: fengkaidong@pku.edu.cn
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

As an emerging science and technology (EST), stem cell therapy presents a highly dynamic and complex landscape, posing significant challenges for the Chinese central government and requiring substantial policy learning. Delving into the realm beyond the traditional literature on Chinese government's policy learning, which primarily focuses on conventional policy areas and local government experiments, this article examines how the technical and interest complexities, along with the fragmented authoritarian structure of central departments, influence policy learning in the field of stem cell therapy. The findings reveal a recurring pendulum swing pattern, wherein top decision makers direct central departments to engage in multiple rounds of policy swings, navigating between developmental objectives and regulatory objectives.

摘要

摘要

作为一种新兴科技，干细胞疗法具有高度动态性和复杂性。这给中国政府的治理带来了挑战，也对其政策学习提出了更高的要求。中国政府政策学习的相关研究大多聚焦于传统政策领域和地方政策试验。本文则旨在分析技术复杂性和利益复杂性以及中央职能部门的碎片化威权结构如何影响了干细胞疗法领域的政策学习。研究发现，中国政府的政策学习呈现出钟摆模式，即主管领导部门引导中央职能部门在发展目标和监管目标之间反复调整以实现政策调适。

Keywords

Chinese government policypolicy learningpendulum swing patternstem cell therapy中国政府政策政策学习钟摆模式干细胞疗法
Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , First View , pp. 1 - 17
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of SOAS University of London

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ang, Yuen Yuen. 2016. How China Escaped the Poverty Trap. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Busenberg, George. 2001. “Learning in organizations and public policy.” Journal of Public Policy 21(2), 133–152.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Haidan. 2009a. “Stem cell governance in China: from bench to bedside?” New Genetics and Society 28(3), 267–282.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Haidan. 2009b. “Ganxibao zhuanhua yanjiu de zhili” (The Governance of Stem Cell Translational Research). PhD diss., Zhejiang University.Google Scholar
Chen, Yongjie. 2012. “Zhongguo ganxibao zhiliao luanxiang zhiyuan” (Source of stem cell disorder in China). Beijing kejibao, 23 April.Google Scholar
Cyranoski, David. 2009. “Stem cell therapy faces more scrutiny in China.” Nature (London) 459(7244), 146–47.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cyranoski, David. 2012. “China's stem cell rules go unheeded.” Nature (London) 484(7393), 149–150.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Editorial Committee of China's Health Yearbook. 1983. China's Health Yearbook. Beijing: Renmin weisheng chubanshe.Google Scholar
Haider, Khawaja Husnain, and Aziz, Salim. 2018. Stem Cells – From Hype to Real Hope. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Hall, Peter. 1993. “Policy paradigms, social learning, and the state: the case of economic policymaking in Britain.” Comparative Politics 25(3), 275–296.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
He, Alex Jingwei, Fan, Yumeng and Su, Rui. 2022. “Seeking policy solutions in a complex system: experimentalist governance in China's healthcare reform.” Policy Science 55, 755–776.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heilmann, Sebastian. 2008. “Policy experimentation in China's economic rise.” Studies in Comparative International Development 43, 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Husain, Lewis, Bloom, Gerald and Xiao, Yue. 2023. “Building policy capacity for managing rapid, complex change in China's health system.” Policy and Society 42(1), 28–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ISSCR (International Society for Stem Cell Research). 2021. “2021 ISSCR guidelines for stem cell research and clinical translation,” https://www.isscr.org/policy/guidelines-for-stem-cell-research-and-clinical-translation. Accessed 21 February 2021.Google Scholar
Kim, Jieun, and O'Brien, Kevin J.. 2021. “Understanding experimentation and implementation: a case study of China's government transparency policy.” Asian Survey 61(4), 591–614.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuhlmann, Stefan, Stegmaier, Peter and Konrad, Kornelia. 2019. “The tentative governance of emerging science and technology – a conceptual introduction.” Research Policy 48(5), 1091–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lieberthal, Kenneth, and Oksenberg, Michel. 1988. Policy Making in China: Leaders, Structures, and Processes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liu, Peng. 2011. Zhuanxing zhong de jianguanxing guojia jianshe: jiyu dui Zhongguo yaopin guanli tizhi bianqian 1949–2008 de anli yanjiu (Regulatory State Construction in Transition: A Case Study of China's Drug Management System Change from 1949 to 2008). Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe.Google Scholar
Mah, Daphne Ngar-yin, and Hills, Peter. 2014. “Policy learning and central–local relations: a case study of the pricing policies for wind energy in China.” Environmental Policy and Governance 24(3), 216–232.Google Scholar
Mei, Ciqi, and Liu, Zhilin. 2014. “Experiment-based policy making or conscious policy design? The case of urban housing reform in China.” Policy Sciences 47(3), 321–337.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosemann, Achim, and Chaisinthop, Nattaka. 2016. “The pluralization of the international: resistance and alter-standardization in regenerative stem cell medicine.” Social Studies of Science 46(1), 112–139.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rosemann, Achim, and Sleeboom-Faulkner, Margaret. 2016. “New regulation for clinical stem cell research in China: expected impact and challenges for implementation.” Regenerative Medicine 11(1), 5–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sabatier, Paul. 1988. “An advocacy coalition framework of policy change and the role of policy-oriented learning therein.” Policy Sciences 21(2–3), 129–168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sabel, Charles, and Zeitlin, Jonathan. 2010. Experimentalist Governance in the European Union: Towards a New Architecture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wolfe, David. 2018. “Experimental governance: conceptual approaches and practical cases.” Paper presented at OECD/EC Workshop, Paris, 14 December 2018.Google Scholar
Wu, Fei, Fan, Minsheng, Sui, Suli, Yang, Yuejin and Zhang, Xinqing. 2013. “Ganxibao yanjiu hequhecong” (Stem cell research: where to go). Zhongguo yiyuan yuanzhang 9, 71–74.Google Scholar
Wu, Heng, and Yang, Jun. 1991. Dangdai Zhongguo de kexue jishu shiye (Science and Technology in Contemporary China). Beijing: Dangdai Zhongguo chubanshe.Google Scholar
Yasuda, John Kojiro. 2023. “Explaining policy failure in China.” The China Quarterly. Published online 2023, 1–17, doi:10.1017/S0305741023000711.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yu, Hui. 1997. “Zhongguo yaoye zhengfu guanzhi zhidu xingcheng zhang'ai de fenxi” (An analysis of the obstacles to the formation of Chinese government regulation system in the pharmaceutical industry). Guanlishijie 5, 126–135.Google Scholar
Yuan, Baozhu. 2016. “Ganxibao de fagui-jianguan-zhidaoyuanze tixi” (The regulation-supervision-guiding principle system of stem cells). Shengming kexue 8, 949–957.Google Scholar
Zhi, Qiang, and Pearson, Margaret. 2017. “China's hybrid adaptive bureaucracy: the case of the 863 program for science and technology.” Governance 30(3), 407–424.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhu, Xufeng, and Zhao, Hui. 2021. “Experimentalist governance with interactive central–local relations: making new pension policies in China.” Policy Studies Journal 49(1), 13–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar