abstract government executive ability reflects the extent of the government strategy enforcing and the ability that government copes with public problems. government executive ability is a complex systemic project, in which public policy play important and necessary roles. the public policy execution ability has a direct and profound impact on the enhancement of government executive ability. thus, it is extremely necessary and meaningful for us to analyze the government executive ability in the public policy perspective.
key words government executive ability, policy ability, policy means
1 introduction
government executive ability is the government performance ability and execution extent of government strategy or scheme. generally speaking, executive ability has the following special and important meanings. first of all, executive ability is the indemnification for the accomplishing of government strategic target. any strategic target can’t be fulfilled without executive ability. the chief function of executive ability is to transform government strategic target into actual operable action. well executive ability is the stable base for fulfilling strategic target. secondly, executive ability reflects government abilities of administration and society management. government governance efficacy is often embodied in the execution sections. the efficiency and the veracity reflects the level of government governance. thirdly, executive ability is an efficient and key factor of consolidating of government’s validity and identify. consequentially a government with well executive ability can win citizens’ trust and support. because can better deal with all kinds of public problems, improve citizens’ profit, make common people feel more self-important and full with hope. fourthly, the improving of executive ability can help construction and development of government itself. well executive ability is good for strengthening organization’s comity and responsibility consciousness. fifthly, executive ability is the reflection of the ability of government adjustment and assign. its elevation can enhance the ability of adjusting and conforming the recourses of government. the ability of conforming the recourses is the ability of collecting, harmonizing, managing the human, money, material, technology, idea and interpersonal relationship recourses. the purpose of the conformity is to change the recourses to the elevation of the government’s ability. the elevation of the government executive ability conduces to the elevation of the government’s ability in these fields. sixth, the execution is the inspection and the revision of the government’s strategies. the processes of execution are the processes of results producing by the government’s strategies. only through execution, the policy can be inspected and revised exactly. the executive ability is the inspection and reflection of the processes and results.
2 the public policy factor in government executive ability
the public policy means the society public authority (mostly refers the decision-maker of the public policy) constitutes the action plans or the choices to achieve a certain policy in a certain case. david easten pointed out, “public policy is the authorizing distribution of the total society value.” this value is not only refers material, but the power, honor and status. excerption for distributing the value, the policy distributes the society recourses. to achieve the strategy purposes, the government can distribute and assemble the society recourses such as human, money and material by policy. thus we can clearly realize the relationship of the policy and the government.
the relationship of the policy and the government is mainly in three aspects: first, policy is the carrier of the power, is the tool of the government governing. francis bacon pointed out that the right policy is in factor to complete ability needed by exerted the power. the ability is mainly expressed by winning support and agreement rather than conflict to obtain the authority and validity. it provides government a way to realize the validity. the form of the policy must be supported and agreed by the heart. the decision-maker must sense the necessity of establishing this kind of agreement. the policy is governor’s decision to obtain the balance of politic strength. obviously, comparing the violence or the other governing methods (governance, rule), policy is a relative softy and rational governance tool. not only authorities always declare their policy is the result of rationally analyzing, the public is also inclined to expect to the government take the policy method when dealing with the public problems. in the hand, the policy provides authority for the government in the reason and evident. of course, this only takes place in the relative democratic condition.
secondly, policy is the carrier of the government’s will. decision-maker’s all kinds of “politic attempts” can be realized by the policy, such as settling conflicts, controlling discords and dissolving the other society problems. at the same time, the decision-maker regards the policy as the inspirit system of the government action, focusing on the aims of execution and offering the impetus for public execution. of course, as government induces and inspirits the masses, it also inhibits and restricts them.
thirdly, policy is a government’s society management method or means. “government using policy as the form and the measure, translates and utilizes the society recourses, macroscopically plans and deploys the society’s development, organizes the society economy activity, develops the education, science and culture and accumulate society, economy and culture.”
policy is an important tool of government governance. the efficient of the tool affect the government’s activity directly. the policy ability’s good or not reflects government executive ability’s strong or not. the policy ability means as a tool, the degree of the policy adjusts its content. the policy ability in fact reflects the ability of government governance, which is a key index of the government executive ability. government and policy depend on each other and elevate each other.
l the policy ability an important factor of government executive ability. public policy is a main tool and means of government governing and management. its operation (including policy instituting, policy executing, policy accessing, etc.) naturally is the important content of government activity whose majority part is policy planning, executing and accessing. so whether the policy ability can be carried out decides government executive ability.
l the incidence of public policy ability is restricted by the government executive ability. the effected scope of policy is limited by the government’s policy aim. the governance scope such as law, convention and counsel, should not be intervened and besides all these governance measures compose the government executive ability. on the contrary, the finite scope of the policy ability limited the government executive ability’s extended scope, which often displays as to a same content the policy, only can adjust to a certain degree. the improvement of the government executive ability can help to increase the policy ability. the improvement of the government executive ability provide the policy’s constitution and execution a good guarantee of body, organization, leader and authority and can make the process of policy operation more smooth and effect, which elevate the policy ability.
on this point, one thing, which should be mentioned specially, is that government execution and policy execution are two category concepts. government execution is government carrying out the government strategies or purposes. it’s a section of government governance. policy execution is the process of realizes the policy purpose with all kinds of resources. the execution of policy is a method of government governance---the execution and fulfilling section of public policy.
3 based on the perspective of public policy to analyze the weak government executive ability’s behavior and reasons
actually not all of the government purposes or strategies will be realized. we can often find the government purpose or strategy be realized inadequately or defectively. an important reason of this situation is the absence or weak of government executive ability. the weak government executive ability mainly includes: the benefit dispute between the center and the local, or the inner government departments, for their own partial benefit; the endless conflicts at the organization operation; block even break when government execution strategy (or policy); employer laziness; the public organization leader incapacity; the execution process distortion. the absence or weak of executive ability often behaves as the distortion of the execution process. it includes that the policy is inadequately or formally or selectively carried out. it virtually distorts the government strategy and policy.
there are many reasons for the weak government executive ability. in the perspective of public policy, the analysis is following:
l in government structure, the scope of policy ability is not accurate. because of microscopic decision covers large, and the policy is not concrete and has multiply status, the dominating area of policy ability could not definite and often absent and superposition. similarly, this is also the recourse of conflicts between center and local, among the department of the public organization.
l the setting of the strategy target (also the policy target) is not reasonable. the strategy (or the policy) setting correctly is the precondition of the government effective execution. the strategy setting must meet following several requirements: subject, clear, concrete and feasible.
l policy subject—government’s character orientation is wrong. government is not omnipotent, and should not take on all the society things. the practice proved that the government’s character should do it should do or it can do, such as providing the public products, arranging the society security. the wrong orientation results in the disadvantage government execution. if the government takes part in the microscopic economy excessively, the government execution will be weakened even go to the impasse rather than strengthen it.
l the system has bug and the policy has not be standardized. the system provides the outer environment for the public policy. the defect of system often leads to the instable policy or other negative effects such as one thing managed by several departments. this obviously goes against the government strategy and policy and influences severely the government executive ability. the standardization of the strategy and policy stresses the clear of the content and the form, maintains their authority, stability and validity. standardization means authority and government executive ability.
l there is absent of supervising and evaluating of the policy. we can’t image that he huge government system is absent of supervise and only depending on the people’s consciousness to execution the public policy and government strategy. the practice proved time and again that the successful and the effective government execution must have a strong, unique and relatively independent administrative supervision. evaluation is another supervision, an afterwards supervision. to evaluate the results of the policy is the main content of the supervision.
l the policy edges—“majority’s tyranny “, on the rule of minority obeying majority, the minority will be ignored or harmed when their benefit is not consistent to the majority. this actually makes the policy unfair and damages the validity and identification of government.
l the crisis management policy is absent. the crisis event is paroxysmal, urgent, limited information and instable. when it breaks out, government executive ability could not carry out effectively as the government’s recourses, including system, process and policy etc. are restricted.
4 improving public policy ability，enhance government executive ability
for changing of the disadvantage of government executive ability, elevating the ability of government public policy will strengthen it. the measures are following.
4.1 based on the perspective of the process of policy
4.1.1 the ability of confirming and programming the policy problems is the premise of the ability of government crisis management. accurately grasping the problems will be helpful for the pertinence and effect of the government activity. the pertinence will help to use the policy (government) resources reasonably and to bring to the policy effect adequately and so elevating the government executive ability.
4.1.2 the key of elevation the government executive ability is elevation the policy executive ability. the policy execution is relative to the realization of government’s intention and purpose and relative to government executive ability. in another word, the degree and effect of the execution is represented the government executive ability.
4.1.3 the ability of policy establishment is the safeguard and confirmation of the elevation of government executive ability. policy establishment will judge the effect of the policy’s value after execution. according to the result, decision-maker can determine that if the certain policy should continue, adjust or end. either to re-establish the resources or adjust the policy will affect government executive ability.
4.2 based on the perspective of the policy subject—government
4.2.1 the policy subject—government’s authority and credit is the safeguard of the policy ability. elevation the validity and identity of the policy subject leads to actualize the government strategy. when the government’s validity and identity is high, the policy will actualize smoothly, and the public will cooperate and support. similarly, the favorable government executive ability is rooted in the understanding and consent of the public whose obedience is the resources of authority.
4.2.2 on the other hand, the government’s limited sense, subjective tendency and selfish will erode the policy ability. the justness and the validity of the policy subject is the guarantee of the effective policy execution. the object factor (such as information) and the limit of itself make the government can’t absolutely sense when it make decision, and the selfish and tendency destroy its policy ability. the solution is democracy decision and public participation, which will elevate the level of the decision-make and the effect of the policy execution, and as a result, elevate the government executive ability.
4.3 based on the perspective of policy resources (or outer limiting condition of policy)
4.3.1 the current society system structure and the inertia of the institution limit the policy ability. either a new policy or adjusting the old policy is the re-distribution of the society resources and values, which certainly will change the current benefit relationship and function status. these all will resist the change. so analyzing and harmonizing the current relative connection and the benefit structure will elevate the policy ability and government executive ability.
4.3.2 the contradiction and balance of the government governance measures confirms the elevation of the policy ability. the government governance measures not only include policy, but also include national system, laws and regulations, moral ethics, manners and customs which have their own character and applying area, and will make the policy recourse applying more effectively.
4.3.3 the policy’s implicit effect should be recognized, the symbolic functions should be focuses and the government’s standardizing, inspiriting and leading ability should be elevated. the explicit target and function of policy mainly resolve the public problems and harmonize the society contradictions. it’s direct and clear. and the implicit and symbolic function has particular effect in the government executive ability, which is indirect and potential, such as politic lectures, counsels, communication and politician demonstration.
4.4 based on the perspective of the form of policy analysis
to strengthen the government executive ability should elevate the following public policy’s three aspects:
4.4.1 to elevate the policy’s standardization. this will increase the policy ability and government executive ability. the standardization includes three factors: “authority boundary, clear boundary which can be delivered and communicated, and the boundary can be maintained by enough recourses and conditions. ”the policy’s standardization will increase the policy effectiveness and government executive ability.
4.4.2 to elevate the policy’s propagable ability. the policy propagable ability includes three points: understandable, the unhindered approach and the proper measures, the efficiency of the results. the analysis must be done to confirm if the policy is necessary and if it according to the public.
4.4.3 to elevate the policy’s harmony. this can elevate the government executive ability. there must be correspondence, consistent and adaptability between the policy system and society system, inner the policy system to ensure the harmony of the policy targets or government execution. thus policy ability and government executive ability will be elevated.
4.5 based on the perspective of policy means and tools
the policy tools are the measures and approaches the government taken to solve the public problem or realize the policy target. “they are government’s activity and the system which adjust the government’s activity by a certain approach.” the policy tools are the bridge between the government’s targets and results. the choice of them is important to reach the certain target. in another word, the choice and usage of the policy tools decide the efficient of the policy ability itself. after all, policy ability reflects the degree of the policy adjusting the policy content as measures. to some degree, policy means and tools are the effectiveness of the policy ability. of course, policy tools as an activity of government; they will affect the government executive ability. policy tools are divided to the following types:
l economy tools such as the introduction of marketization, definition of property, commission others the service etc.
l administration tools such as regulations, orders, directions, etc.
l education or society tools such as counsels, explains, lectures, information promulgation etc.
similarly, policy’s success is not decided by the designer and executor, but by the target crowds. the key factor is the public’s adoption and acceptance. so, the elevation of government executive ability lies on the communication with policy objects (the objects of policy tools pointing to).
5 conclusions
public policy is an effective and necessary governance tool for governments, and an important part of the government executive ability. it is a soft factor of government executive ability. public policy ability will be enhanced through optimizing the structure of public policy, improving the process of public policy, standardizing the form of public policy and the main content of the policy itself, thereby the government executive ability will be improved too.
references
[1] xie ming. conspectus of policy analysis. beijing. china renmin university press，2004, p.23
[2] ning sao. study in pubic policy. beijing. higher education press. 2004, p.247
[3] li chengyan. policy analysis of clean-fingered government. beijing. peking university press. 2002, p.89-131 (in chinese)
[4] owen e. hughes. conspectus of pubic administration china renmin university press，2001, p.99
[5] chen zhenming. pubic policy analysis. beijing. china renmin university press，2004
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