Abstract

A key feature in policy implementation in China, significantly distinctive from many other countries, is the strong and strategic engagement of the central government (Chan &Wang, 2018; Zhu & Zhao, 2021). China’s policy responses during Covid-19 provide a good example of such engagement in which the central government, after some initial missteps in communication, mobilized tremendous amounts of resources during a short time in a rapidresponse to bring the outbreak under control (Zaki & George, 2021). However, this mobilization was very costly— it stretched the governance system so thin that many other services were affected, and some resources were overspent and wasted. In this debate article, we provide a capacity building perspective to understand the efficacy and costs of this centrally-imposed approach in policy implementation.

Citation

Wang, X., Xu, J. (2021). Debate: The central government’s capacity building role in policy implementation in China Public Money & Management, DOI: 10.1080/09540962.2022.2000098