October 12, 2021 | By: Steven J. Balla & Zhoudan Xie
The notice and comment process, in which government organizations make public draft laws and regulations and solicit feedback on these proposals, is a prominent governance reform in contemporary China. This article examines the durability of the notice and comment process as a policymaking innovation by conducting a pair of audits of the practices of dozens of central government ministries and provincial governments. There are a number of reasons to expect that it is difficult to sustain policymaking innovations in China. Nevertheless, the audits—which were carried out in 2014 and 2021—demonstrate that, subject to a number of constraints, the notice and comment process diffused across government organizations in the period under analysis. Although the notice and comment process is a durable governance reform, additional research is needed before it can be concluded that it brings more than a veneer of transparency to Chinese policymaking.
June 3, 2020 | By: Steven J. Balla & Zhoudan Xie
This article compares government transparency and public participation in policymaking across China and the United States. The analysis specifically focuses on the notice and comment process—government announcement of proposed policies and solicitation of public feedback—at the Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOC) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The MOC and EPA are leading organizations in the implementation of such consultation in their respective countries. Information is collected and coded for hundreds of draft regulations and thousands of public comments that occurred during the 2002–2016 period. Statistical analysis of levels of, and variation in, transparency and participation demonstrates both similarities and differences in the operation of the notice and comment process at the MOC and EPA. Transparency and participation are generally lower at the MOC than in EPA consultations. Within such constraints, however, there is evidence of standardization in the administration of consultation by the MOC. These findings suggest that differences in the Chinese and U.S. political systems, rather than issues of administrative capacity, are the primary limitations of consultation as a policymaking innovation in contemporary China.
May 26, 2020 | By: Steven J. Balla, Alexander R. Beck, Elizabeth Meehan, & Aryamala Prasad
This article examines agency responsiveness to mass comment campaigns – collections of identical and near‐duplicate comments sponsored by organizations and submitted by group members and supporters – in administrative rulemaking in the United States. Focusing on 1,049 mass comment campaigns that occurred during 22 Environmental Protection Agency rulemakings between 2012 and 2017, the article develops and assesses expectations regarding responsiveness to campaigns relative to comments submitted outside of campaigns. The analysis demonstrates that, procedurally, the agency references mass comment campaigns in its responses to comments, but cites campaigns at lower rates than other comments. In terms of outcomes, the agency's regulations are generally not consistent with changes requested in comments, a lack of association that holds especially for mass comment campaigns. These patterns suggest that legal imperatives trump political considerations in conditioning agency responsiveness, given that mass comment campaigns – relative to other comments – generally contain little “relevant matter.”
May 26, 2020 | By: Steven J. Balla & Zhoudan Xie
This article examines the institutionalization of online consultation, a prominent instrument of governance reform in contemporary China in which government organizations make public draft laws and regulations and solicit input from interested parties prior to finalizing decisions. The article specifically analyses the extent to which online consultation is a durable governance reform that enhances transparency and participation in policymaking. The analysis focuses on the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) and Guangzhou Municipal Government (GMG), leading organizations in the implementation of online consultation. Through the analysis of original datasets consisting of hundreds of policies proposed by the MOC and GMG and thousands of comments submitted in response to these drafts, the article demonstrates that online consultation has institutionalized government transparency but has not consistently enhanced public participation. Although online consultation has the potential to transform policymaking, the evidence suggests that strong confidence in this possibility is not warranted.
November 01, 2019 | By: Steven J. Balla & Zhoudan Xie
This article compares government transparency and public participation in consultation—a prominent instrument of policymaking innovation—across China and the United States. The analysis specifically focuses on consultation at the Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOC) and United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—leading agencies in the implementation of consultation in policymaking in their respective countries—as a means of evaluating best practices in China relative to a corresponding benchmark in the United States. The analysis reveals both similarities and differences in transparency and participation at the MOC and EPA. The findings suggest that differences in the Chinese and American political systems, rather than issues of administrative capacity, are the primary limitations of consultation as a policymaking innovation in contemporary China.
October 02, 2019 | By: Steven J. Balla, Alexander R. Beck, Elizabeth Meehan, & Aryamala Prasad
By assembling information about more than 1,000 mass comment campaigns that occurred during Environmental Protection Agency rulemakings between 2012 and 2016, the analysis addresses the manner in which the agency responds to campaigns and the association between campaigns and the substance of rules.
September 27, 2019
By: Steven J. Balla, Alexander R. Beck, William C. Cubbison, & Aryamala Prasad
Through an analysis of more than one thousand mass comment campaigns submitted on Environmental Protection Agency rulemakings between 2012 and 2016, this article's findings suggest that mass comment campaigns are not a phenomenon meriting unique explanation, but rather occur in a manner similar to lobbying in other policymaking venues, such as lawmaking in Congress. The research also confirms expectations that campaigns submitted by regulated entities (i.e., industries) are more substantive than campaigns generated by beneficiaries of stringent regulations (e.g., environmental advocacy groups).
March 4, 2019 | By: Steven J. Balla & Zhoudan Xie
This article examines the institutionalization of online consultation, a prominent instrument of governance reform in China in which government officials provide interested parties with opportunities to comment on draft laws and regulations over the Internet. The analysis demonstrates that government consultation practices have institutionalized to a greater degree than the citizen feedback that occurs in response to draft laws and regulations. These results point to the conclusion that online consultation is a governance reform that has advanced transparency and (to a lesser degree) public participation, but has not eroded the Chinese Communist Party’s dominance over policymaking.
March 29, 2017 | By Steven J. Balla
This article examines the operation of notice-and-comment-style policymaking in China. What kinds of government organizations have embraced consultation? What kind of information is disclosed during consultation? The article assembles original data on online consultation from more than one hundred central government ministries and provincial governments. The analysis shows that consultation is more commonly used by organizations that are well-resourced and that do not make policy in areas characterized by fundamental political sensitivities. Consultation holds promise as a Party-led, incremental administrative response to the governance challenges faced by contemporary China.
October 28, 2015 | By Steven J. Balla & Christopher J. Deering
Although state resistance to federal mandates is a prevalent characteristic of contemporary American federalism, little is known about the factors that separate resisting states from states that do not oppose federal policy. This article examines state resistance through a framework that classifies public policies by salience and complexity and identifies societal interests and government officials who are hypothesized to influence policy making on issues of varying types. These hypotheses are investigated in the context of state resistance to four federal laws – the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, No Child Left Behind Act, Help America Vote Act and REAL ID Act. The results of the statistical analysis demonstrate the centrality of the characteristics of citizens, elected officials and specialized interest groups in conditioning state resistance to federal mandates. These results suggest that state resistance can be characterized as a strategic response to federal mandates that varies systematically across types of public policies.
August 1, 2014 | By: Steven J. Balla
Positive theorists have argued that administrative procedures enhance political control of the bureaucracy, in part by predisposing agencies toward policy choices preferred by legislators' favored constituents. Although this “deck-stacking” argument has been both influential and controversial, few scholars have subjected it to empirical examination. This article assesses the operation of a prominent administrative procedure—the notice and comment process—in the context of Medicare physician payment reform, a fundamental restructuring of the way in which the Medicare program pays for physician services. I find, contrary to the deck-stacking thesis, that the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) was more responsive to physicians expecting reductions in fees than to the intended beneficiaries of the new payment system. Although these results do not necessarily imply that Congress exerted little influence over HCFA decision making, they suggest that certain administrative procedures do not operate as instruments of political control.
By: Steven J. Balla & Zhou Liao | September 1, 2013
In recent years, the Chinese government has increasingly utilised online consultation as a means of providing citizens with opportunities to offer feedback on draft laws and regulations. As little is known about the operation of online consultation, this article analyses the content of citizen feedback submitted on a revision to China's health system proposed by the National Development and Reform Commission. Citizen engagement with the political and substantive issues under consideration is crucial if online consultation is to impact government decision-making and enhance the performance of laws and regulations. This paper's main findings are that it was common for comments to address substantive issues in great depth, as well as express negative assessments of government decisions. This suggests that online consultation holds promise as an instrument of governance reform, which the Chinese Communist Party has embraced as a means of cultivating popular support.
By: Steven J. Balla | November 1, 2011
Steven Balla reviews Joel Aberbach and Bert Rockman's book "In the Web of Politics: Three Decades of the U.S. Federal Executive."
This report, commissioned by the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), investigates agency practices in soliciting, circulating, and responding to public comments during the federal rulemaking process.
