清末的外官制改革是近代中国国门打开后朝廷运用外来的“中央—地方”官制系统改造传统“内—外”官制体系的过程，其目的是通过行政权的调整来化解内部的困境，并提升行政效率以应对国际竞争。本文将省制问题重新带回到行政分权的讨论中，以外官制改革这一国家治理转型中的重要事件来洞察帝制中国的行政由“一人政府”的组织结构、以“防弊”为主的制度设置转向以“治事”为核心构建分科治事的完整行政结构的历史过程，审视其面临的困境以及在此过程中所孕育的现代行政治理结构，并在此基础上思考行政分权的组织条件与制度根基。

The reform of the official system in the late Qing Dynasty was a process of transforming the traditional "internal-external” official system by applying the external "central-local” official system after the opening of the door of modern China, and its purpose was to solve the internal difficulties through the adjustment of administrative power and to improve administrative efficiency to cope with international competition. This paper brings the issue of the provincial system back to the discussion of administrative decentralization. Taking the fact of the reform of the official system, an important event in the transformation of state governance, this paper explored a historical changing process in which the administration characteristic of imperial China shifted from the " one-officer- government” organizational structure and the institutional setup focusing on “prevention of malpractice” to the construction of a complete administrative structure centered on the “governance of affairs". This paper delved into the dilemmas and the modern administration governance structure in this process, and based on that, the paper made reflections on the organizational conditions and institutional foundations of administrative decentralization.

狄金华

本研究为国家社会科学基金项目“构建城乡基层‘共建共治共享’的现代化治理体系研究”（22VRC129）的阶段性成果。

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