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This dissertation, "Conflict and Ambiguity in the Implementation of Civil Service Reform in China, 1993-2000" by Kwok-ping, Chou, 仇國平, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: i Abstract This study traces and analyzes the implementation of civil service reform between 1993 and 2000 in China. The reform is a comprehensive reform of the cadre management system through the institutionalization of the principles of merit, impersonality, fairness, competition, and openness. The reform encompasses the following programmes: establishment control, position specification, recruitment and selection, promotion and demotion, resignation, avoidance (huibi), performance evaluation, training, job rotation, compensation, dismissal, award, discipline, and redress system. This study has found that there is a lack of evidence proving that the reform has succeeded in achieving its stated goals of improving the efficiency, capacity, and integrity of civil service. To explain the reasons for the limited success of the reform, this study uses Matland's model of policy implementation that identifies two broad variables affecting the success of policy implementation - conflict level of policy context and ambiguity level of policy content. I argue that civil service reform was implemented in a relatively conflicutal context. Many reform programmes encroached upon bureaucrats' interests: recruitment and selection reform, promotion and demotion reform, and avoidance reform sought to control local leaders' powers to staff the civil service and minimized their chances of seeking rent. The civil service transition, reduction of egalitarian fringe benefits, award reform, and dismissal reform destabilized job security and cut fringe benefits. Reforms of performance evaluation and compensation promoted differential treatment of public employees that conflicted with local leaders' concern for organizational harmony. Some reform programmes, ii such as recruitment and selection reform, required authorities to hire more civil servants through open competition and clashed with other policies, such as job allocation for demobilized military officers and administrative reform. As a consequence, local leaders often had to compromise civil service reform programmes for the sake of implementing other policies given a higher priority. In addition, China's vast territory, local diversity, and the country's relatively decentralized politico-administrative regime made it difficult for reform leaders to specify the reform content in detail. Thus the content of national reform programmes was usually ambiguous. Local leaders had a relatively high level of autonomy and could decide the content of the programmes and the schedule of reform implementation. Though autonomy sometimes encouraged local innovations and contributed to the attainment of policy goals, autonomy also allowed local leaders to delay or distort the reform programmes in order to suit local characteristics and to cater for their interests. Because of the conflictual policy context and ambiguous policy content, many reform programmes existed only nominally. DOI: 10.5353/th_b2982229 Subjects: Civil service reform - China Civil service - China
