Governance in Transition: The Political Economy of Subnational Policy Reform in Southeast Asia and China

权力下放和地方民主是否带来了更好的政府绩效？发展中国家的证据好坏参半。“让政府更贴近人民”的制度努力产生了高度多样化的结果。对这些政策差异的理论解释仍然存在争议：一些文献强调社会或精英阶层的压力，另一些则指出地方经济结构的差异。本研究综合了现有的代理理论和结构理论。主要假设是，在经济适度集中的地区，地方政府更倾向于以服务为导向（也更少腐败）：利益集团一致性和竞争的适当平衡为社会力量和政府领导人之间广泛的改革联盟奠定了基础。为了验证这一假设，本研究将重点关注三个进行了明显分权改革的亚洲转型国家：印度尼西亚、菲律宾和中国。通过结合比较案例研究和回归分析，我试图对地方改革的政治经济学有新的认识。这项研究的结果将为权力下放和治理文献提供信息，并有助于关于次国家发展的区域政策辩论。

Have decentralization and local democracy led to better government performance?The evidence in the developing world is mixed. Institutional efforts to ‘move governments closer to people’ have produced highly diverse results. Theoretical explanations for these policy variations remain controversial: while some literatures highlight societal or elite-based pressures, others point to differences in subnational economic structures.This study proposes a synthesis of existing agency and structural theories. The main hypothesis is that subnational governments are more service-oriented (and less corrupt) in areas with moderate economic concentration: the right balance of interest group coherence and competition paves the ground for broad-based reform coalitions between societal forces and government leaders. To test this hypothesis, this research will focus on three Asian transition countries with pronounced decentralization reforms: Indonesia, the Philippines, and China. By combining comparative case studies and regression analyses, I seek to shed new light on the political economy of subnational reform. The results of this study will inform decentralization and governance literatures and contribute to regional policy debates on subnational development.