Local Governance in Public Service Delivery Networks in UK and China

Even if China has long been considered as an authoritarian state, a number of Chinese politics theorists have used the idea of fragmented authoritarianism as a perspective to explain many practices in China. Tracing back to ancient political regimes in China, it is quite evident that sometimes the central power cannot reach the local level or interfere with some local affairs. Elsewhere, in this process, local actors can be affected by some measures taken by the central government or even included in the administrative system. In the UK, along with the spread of neoliberalist ideology, decentralization reform and relevant agendas in community governance have been launched and the trial and error shed light upon the interactive governance form exploration nowadays and in the future largely. This paper aims to review previous studies on community participation and local governance in public service delivery networks in the UK and China to propose an array of research questions for further investigation. Further exploration will be made on several themes below: the political regimes, development dilemmas of community organizations, the relationship between local authorities and community organizations in the process of public service delivery, how can participatory democracy or consultation help improve performance of community organization and the quality of public service. Despite the political regime difference, China and England have done much exploration at local level and encountered similar problematic situation in community participation.