From Stewards to Agents?

Abstract

The use of public-nonprofit partnerships (PNPs) and intergovernmental schemes of social service provision has been growing in China, making intergovernmental management of PNPs a matter of salient importance. This article proposes an intergovernmental analytical framework that links the adoption of competitive contracting to PNP management. It argues that intergovernmental preference incoherence and stewardship relations lead to collusion between collaborating governments and nonprofits, and that higher-level governments, in response, may intervene by adopting competitive contracting to change the steward nonprofits back to agents. The article examines social service contracting in Shanghai. Facing a lack of nonprofit participation, the municipal government imposed competitive contracting, but the reform was trapped in an intergovernmental implementation game involving the municipal government, district governments, and nonprofits. Although the municipal government combined coercion and incentives to forge a quick policy breakthrough, its central management system was hampered by institutional and resource constraints. The city's district governments tacitly resisted the reform program, and the nonprofits were weak and passive.

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