Social Risks and Decentralization: The reason of decentralized supervision on national food safety in China

中国不仅在行政上实行高度地方分权,而且,在一些重要领域,地方分权的程度超过了效率原则的限度,形成“过度分权”。“过度分权”的表现是,中央政府把一部分全国性公共产品的供给责任也下放给地方政府,要求“地方政府负总责”,形成地方分级管理体制。与美国等联邦制国家相比,中国之所以形成高度地方分权,是源于中国的一个特殊之处,即中央政府能够而且也需要通过地方政府来分散和转移社会风险。因此,在中国,中央政府为了降低自身承担的社会风险及保持政治稳定,就需要把容易引发社会风险的行政事务尽可能交给地方政府去完成,使得从效率角度来看应由中央政府承担的一部分行政事务,因降低社会风险的需要,也转移给了地方政府,导致“过度分权”。

One of the key features of China's administrative system is high degree of decentralization, and in some important areas, it appears of "excessive decentralization", when the degree of decentralization exceeds the limits of efficiency principle. A characteristic of "excessive decentralization" is that the central government has transferred its responsibilities for providing some national public goods to local governments and calls for "whole responsibilities taken by local governments", so a system of level-by-level administration by various levels of local governments is established in China. Compared with the United States and other federal states, the reason why China has a high degree of decentralization is derived from a peculiar feature of the Chinese government: the central government could transfer social risks to local governments. Therefore, the central government tends to transfer administrative du- ties with higher social risks to local governments as far as possible in order to reduce its own exposure to social risks and maintain political stability. When the administrative duties that should be done by the central government based on efficiency principle are transferred to local governments in order to reduce social risks, "excessive decentralization" occurs us a result.

曹正汉 周杰

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