Are the "Bigger Fish" Caught? China's Experience of Engaging Citizens in Performance Measurement System1

INTRODUCTION The recent discussion about public accountability highlights the issue of how to bring the citizenry closer to public administrators (Blair 2000; Frankish, Kwan et al. 2002; 2002; Haque and Mudacumura 2007; Liddle 2007; Eckardt 2008; Khan and Chowdhury 2008; Sarker and Hassan 2010). Among the others, one stream of research is particularly interested in how to engage citizens in performance measurement systems (Ho and Coates 2002; Rowe and Shepherd 2002; Holzer and Yang 2004; Heikkila and Isett 2007; Halachmi and Holzer 2010; Hildebrand and McDavid 2011). The basic tenets of public accountability apparently support that engaging citizens is beneficial, as it facilitates expressing public needs and concerns (Vries 2007), promoting public trust (Fard and Rostamy 2007), reinforcing institutional learning, enhancing the integrity of public employees, and increasing bureaucratic responsiveness (Haque and Mudacumura 2007). Although engaging citizens in performance measurement sounds promising, the realization of public accountability however, depends on many factors. On the side of citizens, holding governments accountable not only needs citizens to consume time in accountability practices, but also rests on citizens' capacity to demand answers from agents about their proposed or past behavior, to discern that behavior, and to impose sanctions upon the agents (Eckardt 2008). It is also important for citizens, who occasionally represent their individual interests as service users, to exert "democratic control" on behalf of the whole society (Aucoin and Heintzman 2000; Haque and Mudacumura 2007; Liddle 2007; Heikkila and Isett 2007). But literature shows that when citizens are engaged, their commentary can be highly "framed" to represent their immediate interests, rather the than the interests of the "general public"(Jewell and Bero 2006). On the side of governments, they have to ensure that the general public as external stakeholders participates in beyond evaluating the outcomes, but in setting goals and informing policy making and implementation (Moynihan and Ingraham 2003). In particular, citizens are anticipated to counter the manipulative behaviors by the bureaucrats in performance measurement, such as exaggerating achievements, building image, and covering up failures (Haque 2007; Halachmi and Holzer 2010). Moreover, governments face the challenge that the involvement of citizens in performance measurement causes the tension between "upward" accountability and "downward accountability" (Haque and Mudacumura 2007), especially when the interpretations of administrative accountability are contradictory with public accountability, thus pulling public servants in different directions (Poulsen 2009). Overcoming these difficulties entails the states develop capacity at skills, knowledge, and collaboration layers, and to demonstrate the improved capacity so that citizens are willing to participate (Bovens, Schillemans et al. 2008). For developing countries, integrating citizen engagement and performance measurement is a more daunting task. In these countries, undesirable public accountability is intertwined with power abuse, ineffective corruption control, and lack of transparency (Sarker and Hassan 2010). It is found that local level accountability is constrained by continuing control and power exercised by the state and the ruling party, and the dominance of local bureaucracy over local institutions (Haque 2008). As Head (2011) notes, too tight control from reformist policy entrepreneurs on the reform agenda renders the civic engagement on major issues symbolic rather than substantial. Citizens might be involved in performance measurement by governments, but "the fact that accountability tools can be available does not necessarily imply that these tools are used in the actual relation between government and associated entity (Kruijf 2010)". China, the largest developing country, has reaped great success in economic development over the past twenty years. …