Abstract
Since post-Mao market reform, Chinese decision-making processes have undergone dramatic changes. Administrative reforms, lobby groups, and thriving non-governmental groups have not only challenged the previous top–down policy formation processes, but have also produced diverse new actors who are capable and qualified to participate in decision-making policies. Although scholars have focused significant attention on this issue as well as on China’s large and complex administrative system, there still remains a limited understanding of the decision-making process. By using as a case study the 836 Program, the most important science and technology development project in China, Peng Ru’s Scientists’ Impact on Decision-Making sheds new insight into how scientists become crucial actors in science and technology policy formation processes.
Ru’s work elaborates the emergence and practices of the 863 Program, and he has developed a theoretical framework to explain the influence of scientists’ decision-making. In Chapter 2 of the literature review, he posits that primary models can only explain a few dimensions of scientists’ participation in policy formation processes. Both policy science perspectives and science, technology, and society perspectives offer a macroscopic framework, but they tend to promote diverse assumptions. The former emphasizes that the requirement for rationality in policymaking paves the way for the participation of scientists. However, in the latter science, technology, and society perspectives, social context determines the methodology by which scientists access decision-making processes. The knowledge utilization perspective elaborates on the micro-level factors concerning the influence of scientists on policies, and it examines the variable explanatory power of the decision-making processes.
While previous models only offer macro or micro explanations, Ru has developed a comprehensive model in Chapter 3. He integrates macro and micro factors into a theoretical framework and reduces these complicated factors into three variables: knowledge, institution, and value. Knowledge refers to science and technology and non-science and non-technology knowledge that scientists possess; thus, scientists who have expertise in the laws of natural science and social information regarding scientific practices are more likely to influence policies. Moreover, the term ‘institution’ represents the broad and external environment that helps regulate scientists’ behaviour. More specifically, Ru summarizes the policy arena (the structure of the political system and administrative style) and rule protocols (the procedural rules and participants’ responsibilities and code of conduct) that shape scientists’ intervention in policy decisions. The other important aspect is value, which is defined as interests relating to culture, ethics, and moral standards. The value orientation of scientists tends to affect their attitude towards policies, which are approached with neutral or specific values.
In Chapters 4 and 5, Ru employs the 863 Program to test his knowledge, institution and value framework. Chapter 4 explains the general development of scientists’ decreased influence in the 863 Program from the embryonic stage in 1986 to the 11th Five-Year Plan period from 2006 to 2010. He proffers that since 1986, the advantages that scientists held – in terms of these three variables – have declined. First, non-science and non-technology knowledge which officials possess has become very important. Second, the Chinese government has successfully established a political agenda in which scientific development is a national interest. This political value orientation allows officials to employ a top–down strategy in decision-making processes in the 863 Program. Third, the Chinese government has separated the function of management and consultation, as formulated in the 863 Program. The influence of scientists was restricted to the consultation field during this institutional change. As a result, Ru concludes that when a scientist could not compensate with knowledge, value, and institution, his/her influence within the 863 Program was significantly limited.
In Chapter 5, because the 863 Program consisted of hundreds of sub-programmes and subfields, Ru documents several subfield processes where one variable changed while other variables remained constant. Using this analytical strategy, Ru evaluated knowledge, value, and institutions in great detail. For example, in Case K1, Ru attributed the positive development of C field to Z, the department leader in charge of the field office, who was a researcher related to C field. Z’s knowledge and expertise in C field allowed him to garner resources and justify C field’s importance in the decision-making process. After Z retired, his successor, who lacked Z’s abilities, was unable to influence policies and maintain the development of C field to the same extent.
Although Ru’s work is an exceptional study on how and why scientists influence policies, it has a major deficiency. His framework attempts to incorporate all-encompassing factors into knowledge, institution, and value. This strategy appears to apply to all complicated social processes and different outcomes to the framework involving a diversity of conditions, which also leads to weaknesses. The cluttered and nebulous concepts of knowledge, institution and value cannot offer specific variables for establishing appropriate hypotheses and testing theories. As a result, using these concepts to explain everything may in fact explain nothing at all. For example, in recent years, all state departments in China have established committees comprised of scientific experts. These experts are not neutral, since they have diverse ties with the state, research institutions, corporations, and civil society groups. Thus, the characteristics of knowledge, value, and institutions identified by the knowledge, institution and value framework may be influenced by the state, the market, or other crucial social forces. Moreover, the knowledge, institution and value framework cannot recognize which social forces are behind these superficial characteristics that determine the experts’ actions.
Nevertheless, this deficiency in the current era, where experts participate in all levels of decision-making processes, is heavily influenced by special interest groups. Ru’s book provides a crucial revelation regarding the importance and influence of scientists on policies, and reminds us that studies on the Chinese decision-making processes should not merely be restricted to focusing on the state, lobby groups, and civil society groups.