Comparing Network Governance in England and China: The Case of Elderly Care and Social Care for People with Learning Disabilities

Abstract

This thesis is motivated by the growing interest in introducing and applying the concept of network governance in China. The main questions the thesis addresses concern the feasibility of network governance and the similarities and differences between practices in England and China. I probe the policy areas of elderly care and social care for people with learning disabilities. The concept of network governance is employed as a framework for the fieldwork and the data collected. The research questions for the thesis are:
1. Is there network governance of local public service delivery in England and China?
2. If there is, what are the differences and similarities between the local public service delivery in England and China from the perspective of network governance?
3. What are the reasons for these differences?
These three questions are theoretically and practically significant in exploring whether and how the distinctive tools of network governance affect the public service delivery process in England and China. The third question covers the interplay between network governance tools and network structures and provides a more nuanced answer to the first and second questions.
England and China have both witnessed a changing process in which the structural relationship between the state, the market and NGOs varied with the different developmental stages in each country of neoliberal reforms such as privatization and the contracting out. Both of my fieldwork sites have experienced community development policies that were aimed to boost the community and the development of NGOs in many ways and by various kinds of input, including resource NGOs are to some extent dependent on the state for various resources to co-produce and deliver public services, which is a shared and pressing policy issue in both England and China – mainly due to neoliberalism and contracting out. Community NGOs also strive for self-development by trialling different patterns or models to improve capacity and resources. However, does austerity in England’s welfare state boost third sector innovation and participation in co-producing public services? Does centralized policymaking in China with no welfare state block the way to diversifying local practices and policy networks? This study begins by asking whether there are policy networks in England and China. If there are, how and to what extent do NGOs rely on the state?
Resource exchange and interdependence are two essential characteristics of network governance which interact with trust-building and diplomacy in everyday interactions between policy actors. Given that hierarchy, market and network structures of governance all entail problem areas as well as strengths, this study explores how the interplay between resource exchange, interdependence, trust-building and diplomacy shape the structures of governance. The study also addresses hitherto underexplored areas of actor-centred analysis on interorganizational networks, as it explores interactions between individual actors from different organizations in the policy network. In doing this, the study testifies as to whether network governance, as a western social science theory, works in China.
This thesis uses comparative ethnographic methods to provide a detailed interpretation of network governance in everyday public service delivery. The ethnographic fieldwork was conducted in Water District, China and Waterfront City, England. These areas are comparable as they have similar geographical areas, similar population sizes and administrative functions and both face similar urgent policy issues in elderly care and social care for people with learning disabilities. The first round of the fieldwork was performed in England from 16th April 2018 to 31st August 2019, and the fieldwork in China took place between 19th January and 31st May 2019. The fieldwork focused on NGOs’ and local governments’ everyday life in their delivery of public services in Waterfront City in England and in Water District in China, respectively. The data used for writing up the ethnography in both sites were extracted from 32 semi-structured elite interviews and 288 hours of participant observation in England and 33 semi-structured elite interviews and 31 hours of participant observation in China. Additionally, local government meeting document packs, local newspapers and annual reports were also collected as secondary data during my fieldwork. The data were coded according to four themes of network governance – resource exchange, interdependence, trust-building and diplomacy – in order to generate the main findings of this research.
The significance of this study lies firstly in its attempts to make an unusual comparison between network governance practices in local public service delivery in England and China, secondly to seek answers to the theoretical puzzles that whether network governance still exists in England and if so, whether it travels well to China, and what the differences and similarities in local public service delivery from the perspective of network governance are, and thirdly to examine how individual policy actors’ beliefs and behaviour affect local practices.
The unusual comparison between England and China produced surprising findings, and there were more similarities than differences. The main findings of the study cover the differences and similarities between individual actors’ contributions, the interplay between resource exchange and interdependence and trust-building and diplomacy, the existence and collapse of network governance and varying forms of key concepts.
• • In England, austerity policies undermine network governance. The limited resource exchange due to austerity and state-only consultation keep NGOs at a distance to various extents.
• • In China, despite the highly centralized nature of power and government, unexpected local diversified practices do exist. Some NGOs use diplomatic skills and build negotiating capital via different means to maintain their relationship with local governments. Meanwhile, the increasing equality and practicality enhance local government trust in NGOs and secure NGOs’ flexibility in terms of providing innovative solutions to dilemmas.
• • In both countries, trust-building between local government and NGOs is negatively affected by the improvisational and limited discretionary power and accountability for all security and financial risks. In China, negotiable discretionary power allows governmental regulations on NGO service provision to be more flexible and innovative between areas. In England, little improvisational discretionary power reduces NGOs’ trust in local government as the NGOs have little or no flexibility and are constantly monitored. Individual actors play essential parts in the local practices of network governance in both countries.
• • As theoretical concepts, trust-building and diplomacy vary from one setting to the next and are transformed by local practitioners into other forms. In China, local government shows its trust in NGOs by involving them in public service delivery contracts. However, distrust can begin if a minority of NGOs misuse government funding and the practice spreads more widely. In England, mutual trust is affected more significantly by NGOs than by local government.
• There are different models of public service provision that may not be confined to government contracts but involve purely voluntary networks or a mixture of both. Under such circumstances, long-term and large-scale contractors with professional local
• knowledge of public service delivery adopt different styles and strategies in terms of diplomacy. They either choose to be critical friends with the city council or defend the rearrangement of council policy. Other managers of self-regulated network are more self-reliant, gaining negotiating capital locally and establishing social enterprises.
Chapter 5-9 analyse the theoretical concepts and features of policy networks in England and China one by one and Chapter 10 Conclusion thoroughly elaborates on six similarities and five differences in this research.
The theoretical contributions of this thesis lie in the assurance of the existence of network governance in China as a western theory, and a cross-country comparison of network governance. Both approaches contribute to the existing framework of network governance by testing its feasibility and validity, by exploring the diverse contexts and by addressing explanations of the theoretical framework.
• The methodological contributions of this thesis include in-depth and multi-sited ethnography and comparative interpretive political research. Ethnographic study equipped me to explore the daily behaviours and beliefs underlying the behaviours of individual local practitioners and the interactive relationships between policy actors.

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ORCID for Roderick Rhodes: orcid.org/0000-0002-1886-2392

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