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This study analyses the intricate relationship between sanction-based accountability and bureaucratic shirking. Drawing on an original survey conducted among Chinese civil servants, it addresses the question of whether sanction-based accountability can effectively regulate the conduct of public officials and provide a cure for bureaucratic shirking. The study identifies the characteristics of shirking behaviour in the Chinese bureaucracy and distinguishes three major patterns: evading responsibility, shifting responsibility and reframing responsibility. The findings indicate that sanction-based accountability may contain some obvious and notorious slacking types of behaviour, such as stalling and inaction, but government officials may distort or reframe their responsibilities to cope with accountability pressure. Empirical evidence suggests that owing to some "strategic" adjustments in bureaucratic behaviour, flagrant shirking is replaced by more subtle ways of blame avoidance, such as playing it safe or fabricating performance information. Sanction-based accountability therefore does not offer a panacea for bureaucratic shirking. (China Q / GIGA)

AbstractThis study analyses the intricate relationship between sanction-based accountability and bureaucratic shirking. Drawing on an original survey conducted among Chinese civil servants, it addresses the question of whether sanction-based accountability can effectively regulate the conduct of public officials and provide a cure for bureaucratic shirking. The study identifies the characteristics of shirking behaviour in the Chinese bureaucracy and distinguishes three major patterns: evading responsibility, shifting responsibility and reframing responsibility. The findings indicate that sanction-based accountability may contain some obvious and notorious slacking types of behaviour, such as stalling and inaction, but government officials may distort or reframe their responsibilities to cope with accountability pressure. Empirical evidence suggests that owing to some "strategic" adjustments in bureaucratic behaviour, flagrant shirking is replaced by more subtle ways of blame avoidance, such as playing it safe or fabricating performance information. Sanction-based accountability therefore does not offer a panacea for bureaucratic shirking.

SummaryIn this study, we seek to identify and explain what factors influence citizens' propensity to confront corruption by reporting suspected corruption cases. From a macro–micro interactive perspective, which we term 'socially embedded anti‐corruption governance', we make two propositions focusing on intrinsic and extrinsic factors, respectively. We believe, first, that citizens' response to suspected corrupt behaviour is a good indicator of the level of their tolerance for corruption. If corruption is unacceptable to citizens, they would be more likely to report suspected corruption cases. However, a low level of tolerance of corruption alone does not necessarily explain why people report corruption. We further argue that people's willingness to confront corruption is also affected by the extent to which they are satisfied with and have confidence in the government's anti‐corruption endeavours. Drawing on data collected from an original survey of 1025 local residents in Hong Kong, we test the two hypotheses. Our findings confirm that the propensity to report suspected corruption results from both a low level of tolerance towards corruption and the positive perception of the quality of anti‐corruption governance. The implications of our findings for other regions, especially Mainland China, are explored. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

In this article, we examine the impact of isomorphic pressures on institutional practices, a field that has not been adequately explored and explained. A critical issue, on which this article focuses, is the process by which isomorphic pressures translate into homogenous institutional practices across organizations. Drawing on the case of extravagant position‐related consumption in local governments in China, we identify the sources of isomorphic pressures, how they come to have an impact, in what ways they are manifested and how they are sustained. We find that institutionalized isomorphic pressures may create informal institutional practices in contradiction to formal legal norms. We further analyze the endogenous dynamics behind the formation of isomorphic pressures, which are deeply embedded in the complex web of Chinese bureaucratic relationships. This article is based on 65 in‐depth interviews with government officials as well as relevant government documents and media accounts.

AbstractThe relationship between market liberalization and corruption has attracted scholarly attention in recent years. Conventional wisdom holds that increased economic marketization reduces corruption. China, however, provides evidence to the contrary; corruption has grown as its market‐oriented reforms progress. This paradoxical co‐development of the market and corruption begs the intriguing questions of how corruption has survived marketization and what explains the failure of government regulation. Extending the conceptual framework of institutional theory about formal and informal rules, and using public procurement in China as an example, this article shows that formal tendering rules and regulations may be modified, circumvented, or replaced by informal ones which facilitate corruption. The article identifies four corruption schemes through which procurement actors may distort competition processes and mechanisms under the guise of formal rules. Consequently, public procurement in China displays the structural outlook of market competition, but not its essential substance.

The initial paragraphs of this article outline the broad themes of this special section, drawing attention to changing perceptions and definitions of corruption and to corruption prevention practices in Greater China. The remainder of the article focuses on a particular theme: the relationship between conflicts of interest and corruption in both theoretical terms and in its application in mainland China. Conflicts of interest are conceptualized as the incompatibility between the public interest associated with official duties and interests derived from the private domain. Such conflicts do not always necessarily lead to corruption and may be distinguished from it. By examining the way in which they are regulated in China, we argue that although an intricate web of rules has been established, regulations alone cannot guarantee ethically sound behaviour if there is no supportive value framework of like-minded civil servants. Rules require interpretation and if this discretion means that civil servants choose to follow an administrative culture and personal values that conflict with the regulations, they will have little effect. Hard rules may mean soft constraints. (J Contemp China/GIGA)