Good governance: how does the government cooperate with third-party institutions?

The "double failure" of market failure and government failure determines the necessity of the existence of third-party institutions, but there is also the possibility of "non-profit failure". Therefore, it is necessary to establish a partnership between the government and the third party, mainly in the form of contract contracting, government subsidies and vouchers. At present, the problems existing in the third-party organizations and their relationship with the government in China mainly include: serious administrative color, poor organizational development, low degree of social credibility, and few public service functions transferred by the government. The government must undertake the responsibility of cultivating, supporting, supervising and participating in the cooperative relationship with the third party, and the third party must base itself on the grassroots, improve the organizational management level and public service ability, and win the support and trust of the government and society. Keywords government third-party partnership theoretical analysis of the partnership between the government and the third party The third party, also known as the third sector, refers to the collection of all other organizations that do not belong to the first sector (government) and the second sector (market) in scope. It aims at non-profit, so it is also called non-profit organization. Third-party organizations rely on non-profit income such as membership fees, private donations or government financial allocations (or subsidies) to engage in social welfare undertakings that the first and second departments are unable or unwilling to do and serve the public. Their business scope includes environmental protection, medical care, education, charity, public security, religion and many other fields. Theoretically, the existence of a third party is needed to make up for the "double failure" of market failure and government failure. It is generally believed that the market has advantages in providing private goods, which is conducive to improving the efficiency of resource allocation, while in providing public goods, the market often fails due to the problem of "hitchhiking". At this time, the "tangible hand" of the government is needed to overcome the market failure and provide public goods, because "the government has the power to force people to contribute (through taxes)" and can solve the problem of "hitchhiking". However, it was soon discovered that the government also failed in providing public goods, because it was far away from the bureaucratic system at the bottom of society, and the standardized supply of public goods could not meet the ever-changing and personalized needs, resulting in insufficient supply or waste. At the same time, it also makes the resource allocation inefficient because of its monopoly position. In this case, the third party with non-profit and voluntary characteristics has obvious advantages and can fill the gap of goods and services that the government cannot provide. The folk nature and grassroots nature of the third party make it closer to the clients, better understand their needs, be able to flexibly respond to service needs and meet their diversified and personalized needs. Although the government is the most important provider of public goods and services, it does not mean that it will take over the whole supply process. The supply process of public goods and services includes two different links: decision-making and production. Advocates of the new public management movement in western countries at the end of the 20th century believe that the decision-making of public services belongs to "steering" and the production of public services belongs to "rowing", and the two links can be separated. The main duty of the government is to "steer" rather than "paddle", that is, to determine the supply level of public goods and services and bear the related costs, and the production of public goods and services can be completed by means of a third party or a market (enterprise), thus realizing the separation of government policy functions and management functions. On this basis, the competition mechanism is introduced to realize the diversification of public service supply. After the separation of "steering" and "rowing", "the government is basically a shrewd buyer, using various manufacturers in a way that can achieve its own policy goals." Although government departments can still serve as service providers, they are only one of them and must compete with other non-governmental organizations or industrial and commercial enterprises. In the position of buyers, decision makers can "shop around", freely choose the most capable and efficient service providers, so that they can get more benefits with the same money, make full use of the competition among service providers, make them maintain maximum flexibility to cope with changing situations, and help them adhere to the responsibility system that requires high-quality work performance. Contractors know that once their quality declines, they will no longer be needed, and civil servants know that this will not happen to them. Part of the functions are undertaken by the third party and the market, which is helpful to realize the goal of streamlining personnel and saving government expenses in government agencies; The introduction of competition mechanism will make the provision of public goods and services more efficient. However, if the government only sees the advantages of the third party in providing services but not its disadvantages, and gives up its support and supervision, the third party will also fail in providing public services. Salamon called it "voluntary failure" (5), which was mainly manifested by the insufficient supply of charity. First, the public service that society can provide is not the best because of the problem of "hitchhiking"; second, it is difficult for third parties to maintain normal operation because of the influence of economic fluctuations; and sixth, third parties may sometimes engage in profit-making activities under the banner of "non-profit". In order to change the failure of the third party, the government should attach importance to financial assistance to the third party, encourage donations to the third party from all walks of life through tax relief and other policies, and strengthen supervision over the third party through performance evaluation. The above reasons determine that the government must establish cooperative partnership with the third party, give full play to their respective advantages, overcome their respective disadvantages, and form a good situation of social pluralistic governance. The main forms of cooperative partnership are: contract contracting. That is, the government signs contracts with third-party organizations, which contract certain goods and services. In this form of cooperation, the government is the arranger, and the third party is the producer or service provider, and the government pays the fees to them. The contracted public * * * services cover a wide range, including garbage collection, ground maintenance, street cleaning and urban greening. It is a common form of government purchasing public services, which is widely adopted by various countries. For example, of the 64 most common municipal services in the United States, an average of 23% are outsourced to the private sector and third parties. ⑦ In recent years, many local governments in China have begun to adopt the form of contracts in municipal management and services, caring for vulnerable groups and providing public services with the help of third parties. Government subsidies. That is, the government subsidizes producers or service providers. Because the profitability of some public services is not high, the enthusiasm of producers to provide services is not high. If they are not given certain subsidies, it is difficult for the public to get satisfactory services. The purpose of subsidies is to reduce the price of specific commodities to eligible consumers, so that consumers can buy the commodities of institutions receiving government subsidies in the market. Subsidies can be in the form of funds, tax incentives, low-interest loans, loan guarantees, etc. In this arrangement, the providers of production or services are private organizations, that is, profit-making organizations or non-profit organizations, and both the government and consumers pay for them. There are many examples of government subsidies, such as government subsidies to some schools, subsidies to medical facilities and medical equipment industries, subsidies to some real estate developers (enabling them to provide low-cost housing to low-income people), subsidies to cultural and performing arts groups and artists, and so on. Vouchers are also a subsidy given by the government to public service projects. Different from government subsidies, it only subsidizes specific consumer groups, so that they can choose to consume a certain service in the market, and the government pays the fees to the institutions that accept one-way consumer services. Vouchers have more obvious advantages than subsidies, because they put the choice of consumption in the hands of consumers, thus causing competition between producers or service providers and helping to improve service efficiency and quality. The American voucher system is the most typical. The scope of application of American federal coupons includes food and nutrition, education, medical care and housing. The American Veterans' Rights Act is one of the most successful social projects in American history. The government does not directly provide funds to establish soldiers' universities, but issues vouchers to let soldiers choose their own recognized universities, colleges or technical schools. Health care project is also an important field of voucher system. Recipients of medical care subsidies can obtain medical services in any medical institution designated by the government with identity documents issued by the government as vouchers. The above discussion about the partnership between the government and the third party mainly involves the supply mechanism of universal public goods. In real life, there are some special public services, such as community public services (community greening and roads, maintenance and appreciation of residential property, community public health and leisure products, etc.). ), only shared by people in a certain geographical range and needed by specific groups. Faced with these special needs, the market has no incentive to do so. Providing services by the government will lead to unfairness, and it has unparalleled advantages to assume the supply responsibility by independent third-party institutions. In addition to the universality and particularity of public services, different regions and different types of people will face different resource endowments and different psychological expectations, so there are different interest demands, and special social organizations are needed as spokespersons to engage in dialogue and exchanges with external people. On the one hand, it can be used as a transitional zone between public power and private domain, to prevent improper invasion of public power into private domain, and to transfer knowledge formed in private domain to public power, so as to improve public decision-making; Secondly, we can prevent the excessive expansion of the market through the strength of the organization. Facts have proved that in the social governance structure, if the government undertakes too much public affairs, it will inevitably squeeze the space of social autonomy, make public power infringe on the interests of society and citizens excessively, and then make the government the focus of social contradictions. People will attribute all kinds of problems to the government, vent their resentment and anger on the government, and the government will become a contradictory party and cannot act as a fair "arbitrator". In recent years, some mass incidents are caused by the lack of social autonomy (such as the lack of villagers' autonomy, farmers regard village committees as "quasi-government"). What's more, the lack of social autonomy will make people like a loose sand, unable to effectively integrate their interests, and the government can't know their real needs, resulting in a huge gap between the government and society, which will lead to blind spots and disorder in governance. When contradictions intensify to a certain extent and mass incidents occur, the government still doesn't know who to talk to, and it is at a loss, which increases the cost of governance. Therefore, the government can only act as an "arbiter" of social disputes and promote social fairness and justice by giving the third party moderate governance space, getting rid of the whirlpool of contradictions and letting the society embark on the road of autonomy. The third party is also an important force to supervise and balance the government. According to the theory of public choice, the government is composed of people (civil servants), so there are bound to be various weaknesses of people, such as profit-seeking and self-interest. Its manifestations are rent-seeking, trading power and money, corruption, bureaucracy and inefficiency. For a long time, we tend to use top-down power checks and balances and ideological education to combat corruption, but the effect is not obvious. First, because of the limited power of internal supervision, and second, because of the hidden rule of "officials protect each other", officials turn a blind eye or secretly help some behaviors or gray behaviors that do not conform to laws and regulations, and everyone tacitly protects the special and vested interests of the official group. Reality calls for horizontal supervision and checks and balances from the third party. The advantage of third-party supervision comes from its wide range of activities and "many people" Officials live in society. The so-called "no windtight wall", every move has clues, which is easy to be found by the public. "The eyes of the masses are discerning." In foreign countries, many non-governmental organizations specialize in supervising the government, and their members live in all angles of society. They often haunt some entertainment places and follow the behavior of officials. There is no unsupervised clean government in the world, and it is hopeless to expect the consciousness of government officials. This is the universal law so far. Recently, after the new leadership group issued the "eight regulations", many people and the media joined the ranks of supervision, and many phenomena of eating and drinking public funds and private use of buses were exposed, which formed a high-pressure situation on the "three publics", which is a powerful proof. The third party is also an indispensable force to help the government supervise the market. The market is naturally expansionary, predatory and powerful, and it is difficult for the government to effectively supervise it. Moreover, the government may be "captured" by market forces and give up its regulatory responsibility. In recent years, the proliferation of fake and shoddy goods and serious environmental pollution in China are the best proof. At this time, the power of the third party (such as private consumer organizations and environmental protection organizations) is needed. ) to make up for the lack of government power, prevent the excessive infringement of the market on society, and maintain the health and harmony of society.