Conference Summary

“Public Administration Research and Education in China Today”
From a Perspective of Modernization and Globalization
September 14-15, 2007
Shanghai, P. R. China

Yijia Jing

Fudan University

From Sep 14 to 15, the School of International Relations and Public Affairs of Fudan University organized an international conference, Public Administration Research and Education in China Today, at Fudan University, Shanghai, China. This conference was co-sponsored by Chinese Institute of Public Affairs. The working language of this conference is English and it attracts people from 13 countries and regions. Totally, there were 28 foreign scholars and practitioners, 1 Hongkongese scholar, two Taiwanese scholars, and 13 Chinese mainland scholars. Twenty five full papers were submitted.

The major purpose of this conference is to promote public administration (PA) research and education to adapt to the fast changing public administration reality in China and the international standards. While China’s public administration practices are increasingly transformed by modernization and globalization processes, it is important to discuss contemporary research agendas and practices of PA scholars in China with regard to these new developments. What research is currently being done? How does it tie into these new developments? How well does this research contribute to empowering a new generation of public managers? Is this research consistent with international standards for contemporary research? This conference attempts to answer these questions by gathering concerned Chinese and foreign PA scholars together and promoting intellectual exchanges. For these purposes, the conference was designed to have 5 topical areas:

1. Developing strategies of empirical research, including best practices from abroad.

2. Assessing and improving PA research communities: roles, impacts, resources.

3. Taking inventory of PA research in China.

4. PA education in China: status quo, new challenges and reform.

5. Undertaking cutting-edge empirical research.

The conference is scheduled for two days, including six keynote speeches after the opening ceremony, seven academic panels, one SSCI journal editors’ forum, and a roundtable discussion between Chinese-speaking scholars. The conference will be briefly summarized in the following.

Keynote Speeches

Basically, to provide the audience a comparative perspective on PA research and education in China and the western countries, two sessions of keynote speeches were organized by having Chinese and foreign scholars to address the same issues in their respective countries.

The “research” session was composed of three keynote speeches. Professor Lingmin Jia, the Vice-secretary of Chinese Administrative Society, gave a talk of “An overview of the recent development of PA research in China and beyond”. Then Professor Bert Rockman, the Director of Department of Political Science, Purdue University, US, gave a lecture of “An overview of the recent development of PA research in the US”. Based on such a comparison, Professor Evan Berman from Louisiana State University talked on “Research Opportunities for Public Administration in East Asia”.

The “education” session was also composed of three keynote speeches. Professor Zhiren Zhou from School of Government, Peking University, lectured “An overview of the recent development of PA Education in China and beyond”. Then Professor Erhard Friedberg, Director of MPA Center, Science-Po Paris, talked on PA practice and MPA education in his university and in France. Finally, Professor Qianwei Zhu, Director of Department of PA of Fudan University, lectured on MPA education in China.

Panel discussion

In order to facilitate good discussion, every panel has 4-5 papers, equipped with a chair and a discussant, after whose discussion the floor will be open to the audience for questions and answers. There were totally seven panels.

1. Evaluation of current PA research in China

Three papers attempted to evaluate the status quo of PA research in China, all using empirical and quantitative research methods. Journal articles in major PA journals, dissertation research in public administration, and the public S&T policy research were analyzed respectively. New strategies of empirical public administration research were dealt with by the fourth paper.

2. PA education and its modernization

Public administration education in China was first reviewed by analyzing its reforms and prospects. There was no doubt that since 1980s, rapid and enormous progress had been achieved. From the angle of the human resource development, three waves of public administration education in China were identified. From an internationalization point of view, it is explored how to adapt the modern PA teaching methods in China. One paper compared the administrative specialized language training in China and in Italy as a way to search for renewed professional identities for civil servants.

3. E-government and performance

E-government is a government innovation with various purposes, among which efficiency is most important. Two Chinese authors in this session analyzed the Accenture’s Evaluation System of E-government, and examined the building of harmonious E-government at Chinese local level by doing case studies of China’s cities. Two South Korean participants shared the E-government experience in their own country, which was ranked as the top countries in applying IT-based government.

4. Performance Management in the Public Sector

Performance can also be sought by institutional innovations. The Miami-Dade County Model was analyzed to explore ways like strategic management in promoting governmental performance. Contracting-out at local government level in Czech was analyzed regarding its real results. While management efforts have to be finally recognized and enhanced by evaluation, one paper discusses public program evaluation in the US, Russia and China with a comparative perspective. Bureaucratic autonomy is also analyzed regarding its impact on organizational performance.

5. Behavior of bureaucrats and bureaucratic organizations

Bureaucrats and their organizations are the traditional topics of PA discussion. Simulation model was used to measure the dynamics of trust and identify its patters of evolvemen. Cognitions, attitudes, and responsive behaviors of bureaucrats and political appointees to public policy making in power transfer in Taiwan was explored in a privatization context. Two Southeast-East Asian scholars shared the experience of PA reform in Malaysia and the corruption in Bangladeshi governments.

6. Policy Shift and Local Strategies in the International Context

PA evolves in a constantly changing environment and adaptation is inevitable. This session deals with various topics in this regard. South Korea’s and China’s new trade strategies were compared by examining their Free Trade Agreements policies from the perspective of embedded liberalism. Local behavior was also examined, by looking at community development policies in Taiwan and the municipal social policy in the sphere of education in Russia. Two South Korean scholars examined the social concertation and priority-setting for expansion of benefit coverage in South Korea.

7. PA reform and its modernization

The last session focuses on the PA reform in China in recent decades. China’s civil service development since mid-1990s, the relations between theoretical exploration and practice, the transformation toward knowledge-intensive governance, were analyzed to understand the PA reform path in China. Principal-agent model was tentatively applied to China's PA practice. Responding to the unfavorable view toward government, a US scholar attempted to rediscover good government.

Editors’ Forum: How to Publish on SSCI Journals

Publication in SSCI journals has become quite a symbol of quality research in China. The conference invited four English journal editors in the conference participants to do an open evening forum to inform the scholars, Chinese or not, all kinds of relevant information about the publication on their journals. These editors include: Bert Rockman, Ex-editor-in-chief of Governance: An international Journal of Administration, Policy, and Institutions; Maureen Pirog, editor-in-chief of Journal of Policy Analysis and Management; Jong Lee, editor-in-chief of International Review of Public Administration; Evan Berman，Managing editor of Public Performance and Management Review.

The editors shared their experience in controlling the quality of the journals and their expectations on the submitted articles. While the acceptance rate of articles from Asian countries is very low, increasing academic interests have been paid to this burgeoning area. Strategies of paper writing and submission were delivered to the audience, and there was a good discussion between the audience and the speakers.

Fudan Roundtable: Quest for Quality in China’s PA Research

The conference made use of the one hour between the final session of panel discussion and the dinner to convene a meeting by Chinese-speaking scholars. This informal meeting aimed to extend the two-day conference discussion and figure out the basic outlets for identified problems. Participants included scholars from major PA schools in Mainland China and from Taiwan, Hongkong, and the US. It is fundamentally agreed that Chinese PA research needs comprehensive improvement, and the Chinese PA research community has been prepared to adopt reforms to adapt to the urgent needs of modernization and internationalization of Chinese public sectors.

The roundtable discussion reached the preliminary consensus in several aspects. First, it is very important to promote the skillfulness of Chinese PA scholars in manipulating modern social science methodology. Summer workshops and short-term seminars should be organized to train PA scholars in this aspect. Further work should be done to upgrade the human capital of the Chinese PA research community. Second, more specialized professional communities based on sub-fields of research, geographical areas, and non-administrative initiatives should be established. Third, it is fundamentally important for PA scholars to truly combine theory with practice and be capable of empowering practitioners and the governments. Fourth, it is important to resist Americanization or westernization in the academic internationalization. While learning is important, theoretical innovation embedded in China’s PA practice and research should never be given up. Theoretical innovation will finally be the touchstone of the quality of PA research in China.

Conclusions

In general this conference achieved a greater success than our original expectation. Participants were of high quality, conference themes were important and relevant, and the organization was carefully designed and carried out. Besides, there are several major contributions of this conference.

First, this conference created a real and phenomenal opportunity for international scholars to have direct dialogues and exchange. It was the rare conference in China with English as its working language and this overcame the insurmountable difficulty of scholars from different language backgrounds to understand each other quickly. Good discussions and cross-boundary thinking characterized the whole process of the conference.

Second, academically, the conference was the first one in China that marked itself with the mission toward modernity in terms of PA research and education. While several international PA conferences in China addressed some important practical issues, this conference addressed the fundamental issues of how to provide good research and education in PA. A paradigm shift was called.

Third, this conference had a hot debate on the relations between theory and practice, localization and internationalization, and qualitative and empirical research. It was generally agreed that the PA research in China has to adapt to the modernization and internationalization trends, yet this process has to be gradual and be different from a simple process of passive acceptance. The value and implications of academic research were discussed and agreed upon further unanimously.

Finally, this conference provided a rare chance of networking and community construction. There is a considerable geographical and disciplinary distribution of the participants. Scholars from Mainland China, Taiwan, Hongkong, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Bangladesh, US, UK, Italy, Czech, Russia formed a quite representative group of the international PA community. A couple of Ph.D. students also participated.

The School of International Relations and Public Affairs of Fudan University is committed to extending these benefits in the future and we expect to regularize this conference as a biyearly one.