Navigating uncertainty in regime transition: reference-point framing as a tool for clarifying the trajectory of political change

This study examines the interaction effects of attention to COVID-19 information and perceived source credibility on the evaluation of government performance in the Hubei province of mainland China; the study is based on two waves of panel data drawn from a sample of 1896 respondents. The results demonstrated that COVID-19 information attention positively influences the evaluation of both central and local government performance. These direct relationships are contingent on the perceived source credibility of central and local government institutions, but they are not influenced by the perceived credibility of social media sources. More interestingly, there is a negative moderating effect of the perceived credibility of local institution sources on the relationship between COVID-19 information attention and the evaluation of central government performance. This study extends the current research on the impacts of information consumption on political attitudes by integrating various theories or hypotheses (e.g. cognitive media model, attitudinal policy feedback, message persuasion, and informational incongruity).

Government performance evaluation has a long history. However, major differences of opinion regarding its role still exist both in Western and Chinese academia, from theoretical, and practical perspectives. In this article, we conduct an empirical measurement of the role played by government performance evaluation and construct a regression model to explore the major factors influencing public officials’ perception, relying on survey data from a district government of county level in Guangdong Province. The study reveals that the average value of 14 items measuring government performance evaluation was 3.36 points (out of a possible 5 points). The role of the government in setting annual objectives, tasks, and priorities, as well as strategic planning, and target setting, and strengthening departmental accountability, had the most significant effect on the perception of efficacy of performance evaluation, whereas departmental budget setting, resource allocation, and reduction of operating costs had the least effect. Furthermore, performance communication and feedback, as well as the validity of the performance indicator system, also significantly influence the perception of the role played by government performance evaluation. The article concludes with a discussion of the differences between government performance evaluation in the West and in China.

Government performance evaluation is a rather effective tool of government administrative reform, government management innovation and government reengineering activities. It will be a comprehensive supervision of the operation process and result of government power and make it possible to establish a clean, efficient and responsible government. Currently, China's performance evaluation of all levels of government in both theory and practice has made remarkable achievements, however, China's government performance evaluation also encountered many problems due to the late start and the complexity of performance evaluation. Throughout the world, the U.S. government performance evaluation has the most typical representative, and it is of great significance for China to systematically study and draw the beneficial experience from the U.S. government performance evaluation.

One of a government's primary responsibilities is to provide public goods and services for the benefit of citizens. A government that excels in such provision may therefore win favorable evaluations from its citizens. However, if external state and non-state actors through foreign aid issuance become providers of what citizens expect from their government, citizens may doubt their government's competence. In recent decades, China has become an important donor to Africa, providing the continent with several aid projects. Consequently, this study examines whether aid from China undermines citizens’ evaluations of government performance. Geocoded data on Chinese aid projects are matched to 4 waves of Afrobarometer survey respondents from 31 sub-Saharan African countries. Using an instrumental variable estimation, the findings indicate that Chinese aid undermines the evaluation of government performance. Testing for the mechanism through which this effect manifests, the results suggest Chinese aid engenders corruption perceptions and erodes trust.

With the development of information society, big data has led the change of society. As the core part of government performance management, government performance evaluation is an important “booster” to improve government administrative efficiency and promote the transformation of government functions. The government’s responsibility is to undertake the obligation to serve the society and protect the fundamental rights and interests of the people. Government performance evaluation is a professional and specific procedure that combines quantitative and qualitative measurements to accurately evaluate the final performance results of government departments in the management process, so as to test and assess whether or to what extent the government has fulfilled its responsibilities. Government performance evaluation not only realizes the core values and public accountability goals of the government, but also is an effective mechanism for implementing government accountability. However, in reality, there are still many problems in China’s government in fulfilling its responsibilities and running performance evaluation mechanisms. This paper analyzes the current dilemmas and problems in local government performance evaluation based on government responsibility, and then proposes countermeasures to improve the government performance evaluation mechanism under the perspective of government responsibility, thus providing a theoretical basis for the implementation of the correct concept of performance.

Government performance evaluation is to improve the effectiveness of government administration, is powerful tool to improve the quality of government services. In recent years, the government performance evaluation in China has made great achievements, but there also exist some problems, such as evaluation subject being single, evaluation system and the law being imperfect. In view of that, this study will not only enrich the related theories of government performance evaluation at the current county level, but also be of great importance on the county-level government performance evaluation for reference in the national autonomous regions.

Numerous studies have investigated whether regulation substitutes for or complements internal governance. The results have been inconclusive due to their over reliance on agency theory and extensive use of demographic proxy variables to real board activities. We empirically investigate the relationship between government performance evaluation (GPEs) and internal monitoring by SOE boards in the context of Korean state-owned enterprises (SOEs), overcoming the limitations of existing empirical studies. This analysis is enabled by data collected from the 1,525 board minutes of 170 Korean SOEs. Our prior expectation is a substitutive relationship. First, the similarity of GPE and internal monitoring by the board makes the relative cost of internal monitoring more expensive. Second, GPEs only reward managers, leaving outside directors unpaid. The empirical results are consistent with our expectation, and indicate that even in heavily regulated SOEs, internal imperatives outweigh institutional pressure. Hence, policy makers should carefully design GPEs so as not to crowd-out the potential benefit of internal monitoring by SOE boards.

ABSTRACTState-owned enterprises (SOEs) pursue multiple goals to maximize public welfare. Therefore, governments must evaluate both their economic efficiency and their social effectiveness. However, government performance evaluation (GPE) of SOEs may be affected by political motives. This paper investigates whether SOEs are fairly evaluated by governments during political events. Using Korean data, we find no significant relation between public elections (presidential and national assembly elections) and the financial performance of SOEs. However, the GPE scores of SOEs are significantly lower in years in which a public election is held than in other years. In addition, the GPE of SOEs can be an important determinant of whether or not to replace CEOs. This research sheds light on the political use of the GPE for SOEs.

This paper analyzes the development concepts of the performance evaluation index system of Hangzhou Government based on the optimization model of Hangzhou’s government performance evaluation index system that emphasizes both on "Democracy and Standards". The paper can be divided into two parts, the first is to promote the standardization level of the performance evaluation index system, and the second is to stress on the improvements of standardization level of the performance evaluation index system. Performance evaluation of government public services is the core of government management, and it plays an extremely important role in improving administrative efficiency, reducing administrative costs and improving the capacity of government management and level of public service. The so-called government performance assessment refers to the government's evaluation of reasonableness of investment of resources, the whole process, the subjective efforts of public servants and the final outcomes. Affected by globalization and the information technology revolution since the 1990s, China has introduced the concept of performance evaluation into the government reform process to improve the level of government services, and to inject fresh momentum to the promotion the construction of a service-oriented government. In this context, Hangzhou has started its explorations and practices in government performance evaluation since in 1992 and has gradually established and improved the government performance evaluation system with "democracy and standard" as the main characteristic. This article attempts to summarize and discuss the characteristic achievements of Hangzhou government's performance evaluation system. Specifically, two paths are now available for the optimization of the performance of Hangzhou government's public service evaluation index:

"Does presidential approval benef it from government performance at the subnational level? This article argues that in multilevel systems, in which clarity of responsibility for policy is low, presidential approval ratings are af fected by citizens' evaluation of subnational govern - ment performance. This paper explores the spillover ef fects of citizens' evaluation of subna - tional government performance on presidential approval in m exico, based on data from the 2012 a mericas Barometer study. The results from ordinal logistic regressions and seemingly unrelated regressions indicate that citizen satisfaction with services provided by local govern - ments is positively associated with presidential approval ratings."

Drawing on survey data from Taiwan and South Korea, this essay examines the electoral sources and democratic implications of vote shifting in these two young East Asian democracies. First, I complement the conventional Asian identity voting literature by demonstrating that vote shifting is a form of rational voting involving critical evaluations of government performance and careful weighing of policy issues. I then extend these findings by showing that determinants of vote shifting also represent critical forces conducive to citizens' support for democracy. This essay contributes to comparative democratization theory by offering a new vantage point for addressing both the electoral and attitudinal aspects of’ the democratization process.

China's government performance evaluation has achieved great success, while it still has the deviation between evaluation result and practical situation. Based on the former research, the paper categorizes the influencing factors on government performance evaluation results deviation in China and analysis the cause and feature of all kinds of deviations in order to provide reference for improving the validity and reliability of performance evaluation, so as to improve the effectiveness of government and realization degree of public responsibility.

China's wind industry: policy lessons for domestic government interventions and international support

ObjectiveThis study examines the effects of government performance and corruption on political trust in three East Asian democracies—Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan—using the empirical implications of theoretical models (EITM) framework.MethodsI argue that political trust is a function of evaluation of government performance, perception of corruption, and their interaction, and provide an empirical test using the data from the Asian Barometer.ResultsEmpirically, I find that assessment of government performance is positively associated with political trust, whereas perception of corruption is negatively related to political trust. Furthermore, evaluation of government performance interacts with perception of corruption to negatively influence political trust.ConclusionsThe findings demonstrate that the effects of evaluation of government performance and perception of corruption on political trust depend on the level of each other. Specifically, corruption can exacerbate the positive effect of government performance on political trust, but government performance cannot ameliorate the negative association between corruption and political trust. This study implies that in a democracy, the public expects its government to be not only competent but also ethical, and put more weight on ethics than on competence.

Urban China always plays important political role in contemporary Chinese history. Urban residents, especially in provincial capital cities, are better educated and live in political, economic and social centers in China. Their support is indispensable for the current government in China. Utilizing a large-scale survey data this study explores sources of subjective evaluation of local municipal government policy performance among Chinese urban residents in ten large Chinese cities. Descriptively, this study finds moderate satisfaction with city government performance among Chinese urbanites, which seems to lend support to Chinese government’s performance-based political legitimacy and explains relative political stability in China. Analytically, it is found that, while perceived public participation in municipal policy-making process, perceived government transparency, and personal life satisfaction increase Chinese urban residents’ positive evaluation of government performance, perceived official corruption, democratic orientation and level of political interest lead to negative evaluation of government performance among Chinese urbanites.