Commentary: Actions Speak Louder than Words: A Political Economic Take on Campaign‐Style Enforcement

• Published date: 01 January 2015
• Author: Tucker Van Aken
• Date: 01 January 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12304

Commentary

Tucker Van Aken was a 2012–13

Fulbright Fellow based in Chongqing,

China, where he researched f‌i rm–state

relations and local Energy Conservation and

Emissions Reduction policy implementa-

tion. He is currently an analyst at Albright

Stonebridge Group, a commercial diplomacy

f‌i rm, where he assists multinationals and

nonprof‌i ts in formulating and implementing

their China strategies.

E-mail: tucker.vanaken@gmail.com

96 Public Administration Review • January | February 2015

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 75, Iss. 1, pp. 96–97. © 2014 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12304.

for challenges such as lack of funding, economic

hardship, or regional employment concerns. Despite

a highly professional, authoritative, and dedicated

auditing group, this subjective “negotiated grading”

allows for the continued divergence of economic and

environmental goals in some districts. While of‌f‌i cials

and managers in Chongqing exhibit many of the

same cognitive behaviors the authors report—namely,

they follow Beijing’s lead—a more nuanced picture

emerges when one examines audit reports and data

more closely.

A major gap in this article is that it does not examine

the exact mechanisms by which top-level policy priori-

ties direct local-level behavior, the most important of

which are yearly performance targets and cadre evalu-

ations that grade each f‌i rm, cadre, and level of govern-

ment.  e central government sets and adjusts highly

detailed grading tables, which establish yearly goals and

act as a “baton” to direct cadre and f‌i rm-level behavior,

an important part of the campaign. Success in meeting

these targets, graded out of 100, determines bonuses,

awards, promotions, and potential punishments.

Targets are ranked by priority: at the top are “priority

targets with veto power” that must be met, followed

by “hard targets” and “ordinary targets.” Performance

on hard targets, such as economic development and,

very recently, environmental performance, is critical to

cadres’ career advancement (Ong 2012). Local of‌f‌i cials

and managers often cite the importance of perform-

ance targets, which have been tightened further in the

12th Five-Year Plan, in shaping behavior and ECER

implementation (Van Aken 2013).

 e authors’ approach also does not suf‌f‌i ciently

explain regional variation in performance, although

local “triggers” are a cause in a limited number of

cases. Importantly, while ECER policy implementa-

tion was remarkably successful across provinces during

the 11th Five-Year Plan, there was wide variation

in how successful. In a forthcoming article, Orion

Lewis and I use regression analysis and provincial

case studies to show that regional variation in ECER

The theoretical framework of the article

“Campaign-Style Enforcement and

Regulatory Compliance” by Nicole Ning

Liu, Carlos Wing-Hang Lo, Xueyong Zhan, and Wei

Wang helpfully describes how campaign-style enforce-

ment can change cadre-level behavior in Chinese

environmental policy implementation. It is certainly

true that increasing the resources available to achieve

energy conservation and emissions reduction (ECER)

goals and the punishments for failure does change

cadres’ “personal risk analysis.”

However, f‌i ndings from my own research, as well as

on-the-ground experience assisting companies and

nonprof‌i ts af‌f ected by such regulations, suggest that

the authors overstate the impact of this cognitive

change on the actual behavior of cadres (government

of‌f‌i cials) and business managers. Most critically, the

article is reliant on the self-interested reporting of the

individuals charged with implementation, whom I

have found continue to demonstrate just the sort of

“decoupled” behavior the authors assert has changed,

namely, that actions do not match words.

 e case of Chongqing, a relatively strong per-

former compared to other provinces, is illustrative.

During two years of studies conducted primarily in

Chongqing—but also Beijing and Xi’an—I collected

public data on industrial and district-level perform-

ance in achieving energy conservation goals. I also

participated in performance audits with local of‌f‌i cials.

In the f‌i ve-year period that began in 2007, when the

Chongqing government began publicizing evaluations

of district-level governments’ energy savings perform-

ance, no district received an “incomplete” rating (the

equivalent of a “failing” grade). However, data released

by the municipal government show that on at least

17 occasions over that time period, districts could

have been given an incomplete grade. Government

of‌f‌i cials argue that a number of factors could explain

this phenomenon, from improper data collection to

“reasonable” ad hoc grading adjustments to account

Actions Speak Louder than Words: A Political Economic

Take on Campaign-Style Enforcement

Tucker Van Aken

Albright Stonebridge Group