Abstract:The dilemma of supply and demand in petitioning reflects the contradiction between the limited supply of public services and the diverse needs of the public, rooted in the tension between the public sector’s pursuit of order and the public’s quest for rights. However, existing mainstream solutions focus on improving either the supply side or the demand side, aiming to change the petitioning behavior of the public, which not only fails to resolve the tension between the two sides but also traps social work organizations in a professional dilemma. Field investigations show that the functions of social work organizations need to be positioned at the tension between supply and demand, playing a dual role of shared responsibility and cognitive homology, finding the convergence point between petitioning departments and the public, in order to fundamentally ease the tension between supply and demand and resolve the petitioning dilemma. This article aims to explain the feasibility and mechanism of social organizations in resolving the contradiction between the supply and demand of public services, providing a reference for exploring the use of various social resources to improve the social governance system of co-construction, co-governance, and sharing, and enhance the effectiveness of social governance.
Keywords:Petitioning social work; social governance; public service supply; shared responsibility; cognitive homology
1. Origin of the Problem
How to improve the effectiveness of social governance to meet the growing diverse needs of the public is an important issue in the modernization process of the national governance system and governance capacity, as well as a classic issue in public management. Among them, the petitioning department as the supply side faces the dilemma of dislocation between service supply and the public’s growing demands for emotional expression, rights protection, and dispute resolution. Existing research mainly responds to this from the political construction and governance technology levels. The political construction level includes the functional positioning of the petitioning system, institutional setup, division of responsibilities, cultural thoughts, and analysis of the relationship with the judiciary, where scholars attempt to resolve the petitioning dilemma through national political system reform, reflecting a grand and long-term political vision. In recent years, with the rise of governance discourse and the application of new technologies such as digitization, academia has begun to focus on the current practice of the petitioning system from the governance technology level, proposing solutions from aspects such as process design, technological empowerment, and capacity cognition. The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China on improving the social governance system of co-construction, co-governance, and sharing reflects the direction of mobilizing the professional capabilities, social capital, and management experience of multiple subjects from the governance technology level to improve institutional effectiveness. Therefore, exploring the dislocation dilemma of petitioning supply and demand from the governance technology level is a feasible path that meets the needs of the times.
At the governance technology level, expanding petitioning supply and diverting petitioning demand are two main ideas for solving the dislocation dilemma. Ways to expand petitioning supply include elevating the status of petitioning departments, issuing the “Petitioning Law” to enhance the powers of petitioning departments, thereby improving their resource integration and service supply capabilities. This idea has been questioned: from the perspective of long-term national governance and rule of law construction, this approach distorts the constitutional status of petitioning as an auxiliary political system, and enhancing its power may endanger the power configuration pattern of the core political system; from the practical operation perspective, expanding power may raise public expectations of petitioning departments, inducing demand and increasing supply burdens, and may also induce tendencies of rule by man over rule of law due to excessive power. Based on this, some scholars propose “limited power empowerment,” which means enhancing the legitimacy of petitioning departments in linking with responsible departments by constructing standardized processes while limiting the deviation of administrative power, and improving the response capabilities of petitioning departments. However, these measures are limited to enhancing capabilities within the administrative framework, and the supply methods of petitioning will still be influenced by the logic of evading responsibility within the hierarchical administrative structure, such as procedural service supply phenomena like formalism still exist. A typical representative of diverting petitioning demand is the separation of litigation and petitioning reform, which diverts matters involving litigation rights relief from petitioning departments to judicial institutions, thereby reducing the volume of petitions on the demand side. However, a comparison of the number of petitioning cases involving litigation and administrative judicial litigation shows that the public is more inclined to use petitioning channels to express their demands compared to litigation routes. Moreover, as the ability of grassroots to identify cases involving litigation decreases with the level, separation of petitioning and litigation is difficult to achieve at the grassroots level. If the pressure on the demand side of petitioning departments is simply reduced through diversion, the pressure of public demand still exists within the overall system of social governance, merely shifting rather than diminishing. Therefore, both expanding supply and diverting demand are symptomatic rather than fundamental solutions.
The essence of the dislocation dilemma in petitioning fundamentally stems from the huge tension between the different behavioral logics of the two sides of supply and demand: manifested as the tension between the generalized service supply of petitioning departments and the diverse needs of the public; rooted in the differences in behavioral motivations between administrative subjects and administrative counterparts, namely the tension between the petitioning department’s pursuit of order and the public’s quest for rights. In terms of manifestation, petitioning departments are within a hierarchical, specialized system, and the services they provide are characterized by norms, standards, and uniformity, with advantages in precision, efficiency, continuity, and assessability, but also suffer from the problem of “goal displacement.” Due to strict compliance with petitioning regulations, petitioning departments indiscriminately classify petitioning matters and the public according to whether they fall within the scope of petitioning functions, easily overlooking the particularities of some individuals and matters. Therefore, the service supply of petitioning departments is indiscriminately generalized, while the interests pursued by the public are diversified and personalized, and petitioning matters each have their own particularities. This behavioral tension stems from the tension between the petitioning department’s pursuit of order and the public’s quest for rights. Based on political responsibility and accountability pressure, grassroots petitioning departments are behaviorally oriented towards regulating public order, reducing the number of petition registrations in various ways, and discouraging the public from continuing petitioning behavior. However, the public’s petitioning behavior is oriented towards pursuing personal interests rather than public interests. If both the public and the government understand petitioning events as interest disputes, there is likely to be a divergence in the methods and outcomes of resolution. Moreover, if the public politicizes matters by using methods such as “fighting for rights according to the law” or “fighting against the law,” the tension between the public’s quest for rights and the government’s willingness to depoliticize becomes increasingly prominent.
It can be seen that existing measures to expand supply and divert demand treat the two sides of supply and demand as independent and separate ends, focusing only on either the supply side or the demand side, making it difficult to resolve the petitioning dilemma. However, the essence of the dislocation dilemma in petitioning stems from the huge tension between the different behavioral logics of the supply side and the demand side, thus it is necessary not only to improve one side or both sides separately but also to improve the relationship between the two sides. If improvement measures are taken separately, it may instead increase the tension between the two sides, such as increasing political and administrative resources to enhance the power of petitioning departments, which may increase the assessment requirements of petitioning departments, further reinforcing the evasion of responsibility behavior of grassroots petitioning departments and exacerbating the characteristics of procedural and generalized service supply. For example, guiding the public to resolve disputes through judicial channels is ineffective, as the public is more inclined to choose petitioning, which has a lower threshold, lower time costs, and more flexible handling methods, rather than judicial channels to pursue personal rights. Moreover, there are cases where the public, dissatisfied with the final judicial ruling, turn to petitioning, further reinforcing the inertia of distrust in the law. Therefore, resolving the dislocation dilemma of supply and demand requires viewing the petitioning administrative subjects, administrative counterparts, and the interaction between the two as a mutually related, interconnected whole, placing the focus of resolution on the interactive relationship between supply and demand. Specifically, it is about finding the mutually compatible behavioral motivations between petitioning departments and the public, fundamentally easing the tension between the two sides, thereby improving the tension between generalized, indiscriminate supply behavior and diverse, personalized demand.
2. Repositioning the Function of Petitioning Social Work
(1) Petitioning Social Work under Policy Guidance
In the face of the dislocation dilemma of petitioning supply and demand, the report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out the need to improve and enhance the quality of petitioning by adhering to and developing the “Fengqiao Experience” at the grassroots level in the new era. The “Fengqiao Experience” emphasizes that grassroots governments rely on and mobilize social resources to bridge the gap between governance demand and the total amount of resources. Focusing on petitioning departments, the “Party and National Reform Plan” proposed in March 2023 to establish a Central Social Work Department responsible for coordinating and guiding people’s petitioning work is precisely in line with this theoretical measure. The Social Work Department provides sufficient support for petitioning service supply by coordinating various social resources, thereby timely resolving petitioning disputes on-site and responding to public needs, reflecting the direction of reform in the modernization of China’s social governance system. Although the “social work” in this Social Work Department does not limit itself to the professional field of social work, but refers to the work of the “big society,” that is, the responsibilities involved in all aspects of the composition of society, in recent years, social work organizations (referred to as social work organizations) have become the main and fastest-growing recipients of service projects purchased by grassroots governments. Some regions in China have also sporadically launched petitioning social work projects (referred to as petitioning social work), such as Guangdong Province and Shanghai City, introducing social work organizations into petitioning bureau halls or outsourcing specific petitioning cases to social work organizations for intervention and resolution.
Therefore, this study takes petitioning social work as the research object, positioning social work organizations at the tension between petitioning departments and the public, and analyzes how social work organizations can ease the tension on both sides of petitioning supply and demand, thereby resolving the dislocation dilemma. This article focuses on the mechanism of action of petitioning social work, exploring how to resolve the contradiction between the limited public service supply of the government and the growing diverse needs of the public by introducing social organizations, responding to how to coordinate various social resources to improve the social governance system of co-construction, co-governance, and sharing, and enhance the effectiveness of social governance; at the policy level, it provides theoretical and empirical references for the newly established Social Work Department to coordinate and guide people’s petitioning work.
This study is based on field research on petitioning social work in H and L from 2017 to 2022, including daily notes from participatory observation, records of in-depth interviews, and documentation from petitioning departments and social work organizations, with the three types of materials complementing each other. During the field research, the author conducted participatory observation for a total of three months, with one month in each of three time periods, fully participating in various occasions of interaction between social work organizations and the public, and government departments in H and L, including receiving visits, home visits, case handling, internal meetings of social work organizations, and discussions of plans between social work organizations and government departments. The subjects of in-depth interviews were mainly supervisors, project managers, frontline social workers of social work organizations, and relevant personnel from government departments. Documentation records provide historical data on certain petitioning cases, as well as records of some petitioning cases that the author could not personally participate in.
(2) Practical Perspective of Petitioning Social Work
Most empirical studies believe that social work organizations have two functions in petitioning: the emotional mobilization function represented by flexible governance and the resource connection function represented by community governance. The emotional mobilization function is manifested in social work organizations using skills such as listening, encouraging support, clarifying, suggesting, and educating to guide the public’s negative emotions, establishing trust relationships through emotional mobilization, and achieving non-coercive persuasion, thereby reducing the public’s extreme behaviors in expressing negative emotions. Social work organizations can also analyze the family structure and social support systems of petitioning individuals to identify their individual or family needs, aiming to eliminate the public’s petitioning thoughts from the source. The resource connection function is manifested in social work organizations connecting various resources such as government, experts, enterprises, and charities to help the public meet their needs, shifting their focus from petitioning to other areas of life. These literatures affirm the special services provided by social work organizations using professional methods such as casework, easing the tension between generalized, indiscriminate petitioning service supply and personalized, diversified demand. As Wang Shaoguang pointed out, social organizations can supplement the government’s public service supply gap by meeting the public’s diverse needs for public goods, including extraordinary needs and special tastes. However, most literature also points out the developmental dilemma of social work organizations participating in social governance in petitioning projects. At the beginning of the petitioning social work experiment, petitioning departments positioned social work organizations as professional resources, expecting them to enhance their dispute resolution capabilities, thus setting project assessment indicators such as “stopping the public’s petitioning behavior,” “lowering the public’s psychological expectations,” and “signing settlement agreements,” which align closely with their administrative performance assessment indicators. However, the professional strengths of social work organizations lie in emotional guidance, case counseling, psychological support, and resource linking. Combining their professional expertise with a preliminary understanding of the petitioning system, social work organizations set work goals as “assisting the public in expressing and resolving needs,” “adjusting the public’s family and social functions,” and “promoting dialogue between the public and the government.” In contrast, petitioning departments are results-oriented, emphasizing the effectiveness of dispute resolution; while social work organizations are process-oriented, emphasizing changes in the public’s personal growth, family relationships, and social integration. Due to the different goals pursued, although some social work organizations invested considerable resources at the project’s outset, including human costs for supervision and senior social workers, preliminary research, and time costs for communication with government departments, the output results did not meet all of the petitioning departments’ expectations. Many social work organizations can establish relationships with the public, guide their emotions, and reduce the frequency of petitioning, but only a few cases achieve the goal of stopping petitioning and signing settlement agreements. Due to the project’s effectiveness falling short of expectations, only meeting the phased goal of dispute resolution without achieving the final resolution of cases, some petitioning departments lowered their expectations for the professional effectiveness of social work organizations, reducing their functional positioning to mere human resource supplementation rather than professional capability support, such as assisting in data input, document organization, emotional guidance during public reception, and home visits. Therefore, as the effectiveness of social work organizations fails to meet government expectations, their capabilities are questioned by the outside world, while social work organizations also experience self-doubt regarding their professional role positioning and professional value within the petitioning system.
In essence, the dilemma of petitioning social work stems from the conflict between the objectives of dispute mediation by petitioning departments and the empowerment of the public by social work organizations. In the current petitioning social work, the relationship between petitioning departments and social work organizations is a principal-agent relationship, where social work organizations, as agents, under the constraints of contract signing and performance assessment, need to produce outcomes that align with the objectives of the petitioning departments as the principals. However, social work organizations pursue professional values of “service, social justice, individual dignity and value, the importance of interpersonal relationships, integrity, and capability,” which leads social workers in practice to respect the individual value of the public, enhance their individual capabilities, strengthen the connections between individuals and families and society, and help those in need solve their practical problems. The inherent mass and grassroots nature of social work organizations aligns their behavioral motivations with the public’s quest for rights. Thus, when the behavioral motivation of the petitioning department’s pursuit of order is transferred to the performance assessment direction of social work organizations through the principal-agent relationship, the professional value pursuit internalized by social work organizations subtly encourages them to choose the service direction of empowering the public to pursue rights. Therefore, positioning social work organizations as agents of the government and attempting to change or even stop the public’s petitioning behavior cannot fundamentally ease the tension between the two sides of petitioning supply and demand, but rather traps petitioning social work in a dilemma.
(3) Organic Collaboration Framework of Petitioning Social Work
Thus, this article introduces a theoretical guidance that transcends the principal-agent model: organic collaboration. Organic collaboration encompasses two layers of meaning, emphasizing collaborative cooperation with shared responsibility; and emphasizing the organic combination of cognitive homology.
First, emphasizing collaborative cooperation with shared responsibility transcends the implicit authorization of the principal to the agent and the transmission of organizational goals, emphasizing that “two autonomous entities expect each other, work together, and share responsibility, committed to solving problems that a single organization cannot resolve.” “Expecting each other and working together” means that petitioning departments and social work organizations can jointly participate in the formulation and implementation of petition mediation plans, where social work organizations can provide professional opinions on the handling methods of petitioning matters and mediation plans, and these opinions can be heard and adopted. “Sharing responsibility” means that the intervention of social work organizations can help petitioning departments share the risk of accountability, enhancing the ability of petitioning departments to evade risks and reducing their concerns about handling petitioning matters. For grassroots petitioning departments, their behavioral motivation to pursue order stems from the logic of evading responsibility. As the final bearers of pressure in a pressure-type system, grassroots petitioning departments tend to evade risks to ensure that personal and departmental interests are not harmed, thus avoiding petitioning disputes as much as possible rather than actively addressing demands. Therefore, when the intervention of social work organizations can reduce the risk of accountability for petitioning departments and alleviate their concerns about handling petitioning demands, it is conducive to promoting petitioning departments to move closer to the middle ground between the supply side and the demand side, easing the tension between the two sides.
Second, emphasizing the organic combination of cognitive homology refers to the possibility of information sharing and cognitive homology between multiple independent subjects, emphasizing that the autonomous entities can retain their respective resources and unique attributes during the collaboration process, introducing an open, dynamic, and sustainable organic ecological logic. This organic combination is conducive to promoting mutual recognition and trust, generating problem-solving solutions based on consensus. Constructing a common understanding of the public’s demands is crucial for easing the tension between supply and demand. Due to the lack of in-depth understanding of the public’s demands, petitioning departments, motivated by the pursuit of order, tend to “demonize” some public behaviors in seeking rights. Undeniably, some members of the public do exhibit spontaneous behaviors of “persistent petitioning” or “troublesome petitioners.” However, there is also a process of passive transformation of the public’s mentality and behavior over years of petitioning experience, such as the transformation from rights protection-type petitioning to profit-seeking petitioning. The space for profit-seeking utilized by the public is generated by the evasion strategies of grassroots petitioning departments, stemming from the incentive logic of the upper-level government in the territorial responsibility system of petitioning and the coping logic of grassroots governments. Moreover, according to Ying Xing’s viewpoint of “fighting with spirit,” experiences of being treated with indifference or oppression lead the public to harbor resentment towards petitioning departments, reinforcing their determination to persist in petitioning, driving them to adopt more radical petitioning behaviors, resulting in the expression of aggressive emotions and non-substantive demands. The public’s “demonized” abnormal petitioning behaviors further reinforce the evasion behaviors of grassroots petitioning departments, expanding the tension between supply and demand. Therefore, when the intervention of social work organizations can facilitate the construction of a common understanding of petitioning demands between petitioning departments and the public, and petitioning departments actively respond to public needs, the public will reduce their use of petitioning as a means to pursue rights, or even stop petitioning, which is conducive to promoting petitioning individuals to move closer to the middle ground between supply and demand, easing the tension between the two sides.
Compared to the principal-agent theory, in the framework of organic collaboration, social work organizations transform from contract recipients to autonomous entities that can share responsibilities and risks with petitioning departments; their role positioning shifts from that of agents transmitting goals to professional subjects that can retain their unique values; their functional performance expands from being limited to the demand side to also acting on the tension between the supply and demand sides. By emphasizing collaborative cooperation with shared responsibility, social work organizations promote petitioning departments to transcend generalized, indiscriminate service supply; by emphasizing the organic combination of cognitive homology, social work organizations facilitate the satisfaction of the public’s deep-seated, personalized, and diversified needs, while also meeting the petitioning departments’ pursuit of order.
3. The Mechanism of Petitioning Social Work in Easing Tension
Based on the research objectives and the availability of research materials, this study adopts a positive sample empirical research method: first, the practical experiences of successful cases are the foundational materials for exploring the feasibility and mechanism of social work in resolving the dislocation dilemma of petitioning supply and demand. By thoroughly tracing the handling processes of these cases and deeply analyzing the interaction processes between social work organizations, petitioning departments, and the public, more importantly, the changes in the relationship between petitioning departments and the public after the intervention of social work organizations can reveal the important influencing factors and mechanisms in positive outcome cases. Second, as the petitioning social work project is in the trial stage, most current documents are records of positive outcome cases, including the basic situation of petitioning cases before the intervention of social work organizations, the process of intervention, the handling process of cases, and the final outcomes. It should be noted that positive samples refer to cases where the final resolution result is positive, but the handling processes of these cases also face limitations, challenges, and difficulties, and the interaction between social work organizations and petitioning departments is complex and multi-faceted. The participatory observation and in-depth interviews present the iterative interaction process between social work organizations and petitioning departments, providing materials for further research on how to shape a favorable institutional environment for the functioning of social work organizations. The selection criteria for positive cases are outcome-oriented, aiming for rational trends in the public’s petitioning behavior after the intervention of social work organizations, such as shortening the duration of petitioning, easing negative emotions, suspending petitioning behavior during the service period of social work organizations, reducing the frequency of petitioning, and completely stopping petitioning behavior. At the same time, to avoid selection bias from positive samples and to expand the diversity of cases, 41 cases cover various petitioning demands, such as demolition compensation, property rights, personnel issues, medical care, labor disputes, family and neighborhood disputes, and complaints about administrative actions; the 41 cases are distributed across different street offices or village (community) committees in H and L, and involve different frontline social workers, aiming to cover more specific practical situations and influencing factors. Among them, the S case in L shows the most significant contrast in outcomes before and after the intervention of social work organizations. Before the intervention, the S family had petitioned for over ten years and was considered one of the most difficult petitioning backlog cases by the local government. After the intervention of social work organizations, they ultimately achieved a signed settlement agreement, completely stopping their petitioning behavior, making it a typical case worth in-depth discussion. Based on the analysis of the above cases, this article identifies two pathways through which petitioning social work alleviates tension: first, social work organizations share the responsibility of mediating disputes with petitioning departments, reducing the risks of accountability and loss of authority that may arise when handling petitioning matters, and alleviating the concerns of petitioning departments in addressing demands; second, social work organizations construct a common understanding of petitioning demands between petitioning departments and the public, prompting the recognition of the public’s deep-seated needs by petitioning departments, thereby increasing their willingness to respond to demands.
(1) Shared Responsibility
Shared responsibility refers to the joint responsibility and risks undertaken by social work organizations and petitioning departments to improve the effectiveness of petitioning, specifically divided into two parts: first, social work organizations reduce the public’s abnormal petitioning behaviors through professional services, improving the effectiveness of dispute mediation and alleviating the pressure and concerns of petitioning departments; second, social work organizations, as non-administrative social organizations, help petitioning departments evade the risks that may arise when handling petitioning matters, reducing the likelihood of accountability and loss of authority for local governments. Before the intervention of social work organizations, petitioning departments faced risks from both vertical and horizontal dimensions. One is the accountability risk from top-down administrative systems. Due to accountability pressure, petitioning departments need to prevent abnormal petitioning behaviors, such as disruptive petitioning or petitioning at higher levels. However, if a flexible approach is adopted, short-term persuasion is often ineffective, and long-term appeasement requires substantial human and material resources, and excessive financial expenditure may not receive support from higher authorities, potentially leading to long-term dependency of the public on local governments, prolonging the handling time of cases and resulting in difficult-to-resolve backlogs. If a rigid approach is adopted, coercive measures lack legal basis and social rationale, easily leading to accountability from higher authorities and generating negative public opinion. If this triggers broader resistance, it may incur greater responsibility. The second is the risk of loss of authority from external interactions between government and society. Some public petitioning behaviors are increasingly strategic, such as expressive petitioning through “crying, making a scene” or “threatening to die”; profit-seeking petitioning through persistent petitioning to gain personal benefits such as living assistance or relief; and legal resistance-type petitioning that complicates personal demands with legal, rights, disputes, and moral information. If petitioning departments excessively discourage or reason with these types of public, it may trigger more strategic behaviors; if they adopt concessionary measures based on interest exchange, it may induce them to become “coercive petitioners,” undermining the legitimacy and legality of local government power, leading to loss of authority.
The S family in L had petitioned for over ten years and had even gone to Beijing to petition. The local government’s mixed approach did not stop their petitioning but instead led to an increase in their demands from a single request for higher demolition compensation to 13 demands. The local village head repeatedly explained: “The S family is very honest; they were originally a blank slate, just wanting to ask for more demolition compensation. (Various demands) were learned after going to Beijing.”
So, how do social work organizations reduce the above risks?
First, social work organizations provide professional services to reduce the public’s abnormal petitioning behaviors, lowering the accountability risks associated with abnormal petitioning behaviors being recorded by higher authorities. A report from L indicated that after social work organizations intervened in 78 petitioning cases, 24 individuals (31%) stopped petitioning, and their matters were mediated, while 34 individuals (44%) reduced their petitioning frequency and were able to express their demands rationally (2014 L social work project summary meeting materials).
The professional services of social work organizations include establishing professional relationships of mutual trust, identifying and guiding the public’s negative emotions, accompanying and rebuilding the public’s family and social support systems, mainly achieved through case counseling, group activities, and other professional methods. In fact, before the intervention of social work organizations, petitioning departments also made efforts to establish friendly social relationships with the public, both to reduce conflicts and to persuade the public to stop petitioning. However, the professional relationships established by social work organizations after their intervention differ from this; although there is also the goal of persuading the public to stop petitioning, it is not the only goal. The most important goal of social work organizations is to meet the deep-seated needs of the public by rebuilding their family and social systems, fundamentally easing the tension between the behavioral motivations of supply and demand. When the deep-seated needs of the public are met, achieving the goal of pursuing rights, they will stop seeking personal rights through petitioning. The intervention of social work organizations effectively reduces the frequency of abnormal petitioning by the public, avoiding the accountability risks that arise from it, providing a sense of security to petitioning departments, and allowing them to see a way to mediate petitioning behavior beyond rigidity and flexibility, while avoiding the risks that may arise from traditional coercive suppression, long-term appeasement persuasion, or interest exchange.
After the intervention in the S case, social workers identified that, in addition to demolition compensation, the essence of their petitioning was to ensure pension security, medical security for the wife with mental illness, and job security for the child. These deep-seated needs were referred to as “pain points” by social worker Li, which were key to empathy and proposing mediation plans. Based on this, social worker Li explained rural pension insurance, minimum living security, and other policies to S, accompanied them in applying; arranged for a psychological counselor to consult for their wife to alleviate mental health issues; encouraged their son to participate in community activities organized by social work organizations to reintegrate into society, and promised to help recommend suitable job positions. Social worker Li also began to discuss future plans with the S family, especially regarding family life planning after signing the demolition compensation agreement, attempting to shift their focus from petitioning to future development. During the service period of social work organizations, the S family significantly reduced their petitioning behavior.
Second, as social organizations outside the administrative system, social work organizations directly assist in handling petitioning matters, helping petitioning departments avoid the constraints of laws and regulations on administrative departments, reducing the risks of accountability and loss of authority that may arise from breaking existing laws or financial systems, or from concessionary measures. With the deepening of the concept of governing the country by law, local governments, aiming to solve specific problems, have less motivation to break established laws or regulations through experimental innovations. Social work organizations outside the administrative system can break these constraints, using more flexible methods to interact with the public and reach mediation agreements. For example, the amount paid for social work services in L not only includes the professional service fees of social work organizations but also includes the compensation amounts in the mediation agreements signed between social work organizations and the public. This innovative approach, referred to as “transferring payments through third-party social organizations” by L, allows for legal and compliant financial applications under the guise of purchasing third-party services; on the other hand, it enhances the charitable nature of the compensation amounts. Compared to traditional one-time payments, social work organizations provide the public with installment payments in a charitable assistance manner over the service period, which typically lasts 3-5 years, and the service period also includes emotional guidance, rebuilding family social support systems, and accompanying counseling (2019 participatory observation in L). Since the compensation amounts are provided by social work organizations through professional services rather than by petitioning departments through interest exchange, it can somewhat reduce the public’s profit-seeking motivations and diminish their negative modeling effects. Social work organizations utilize informal institutional methods to provide weak stability control and “emotional and rational governance,” minimizing the use of interest exchange methods, reducing the likelihood of local governments being “coerced,” and lowering the risks of loss of authority.
A law enforcement worker in H stated: “We have to adhere to many rules and regulations; we do what the policies dictate, and we also have performance assessments and evaluations. However, outsourcing work to third parties allows for more diverse handling methods that we cannot achieve ourselves.” (Interview record from August 2017 in H)
(2) Cognitive Homology
Cognitive homology refers to social work organizations constructing petitioning demands that can be mutually understood and recognized by petitioning departments and the public, centered around the deep-seated needs of the public. The process of cognitive homology is essentially a process of re-encoding public demands: after the intervention of social work organizations, by collecting more comprehensive information, social work organizations re-encode the public’s demands into administrative language familiar to petitioning departments, which is easy to empathize with, changing the petitioning departments’ understanding of the public and the matters, leading them to view the public as worthy of help, thus being more willing to respond positively to their demands.
First, after the intervention of social work organizations, by increasing the time for information collection and broadening the channels for information collection, they continuously supplement information, allowing petitioning departments to grasp more comprehensive information. Compared to petitioning departments, social work organizations have more time to collect information. The service contracts for petitioning social work typically last 1-2 years, with a limited number of cases assigned, allowing for more time and energy to be devoted to information collection. For example, the service contract in H requires social work organizations to participate in no less than 8 petitioning cases within a year. The service contract in L requires social work organizations to resolve one petitioning case within a year, positively changing the public’s petitioning behavior. Due to the ample time, after the intervention of social work organizations, they do not rush to persuade or explain to dissuade the public from petitioning but instead leverage their professional advantages in emotional recognition, emotional connection, and psychological guidance, focusing on listening to the public’s narratives, calmly accepting and guiding their anxiety, distress, pain, and irritability. They encourage the public to express their deep-seated needs. Secondly, compared to petitioning departments, social work organizations have more channels to collect information. They not only receive the public in petitioning halls but also actively make phone calls or visit the public. Social work organizations visit the public 3-5 times a week, gradually lowering the public’s guard, establishing professional relationships, and then collecting important information about the public’s psychological and mental state, thinking patterns, living habits, interests, life goals, and life plans. With this information, social work organizations repeatedly confirm the content of petitioning demands with the public, carefully sorting through each demand, understanding the background and details of the public’s petitioning experiences. In addition to collecting information from the public, petitioning departments, and relevant functional departments, social work organizations also gather information through the public’s village committees, neighbors, relatives, work units, and informants of the petitioning events that occurred that year, such as the public’s personal growth history, personality traits, interests and specialties, physical conditions, property status, family structure, and social relationship networks.
Second, after collecting more information from various channels, social work organizations re-encode the public’s demands, focusing on reflecting the deep-seated needs within the public’s family and social systems, and matching these needs with the legal functions of petitioning departments. Empirical materials reveal that the public, petitioning departments, and social work organizations have three different descriptions of the same petitioning event. By analyzing and summarizing the 41 cases in H and L, the public’s descriptions of petitioning events are reflected in their completed petition registration forms, submitted materials, and verbal expressions of petitioning demands, which can be categorized into four types: 20 cases involve demands for “compensation for family breakdown, economic and mental losses caused by demolition, petitioning, and other conflicts”; 10 demands involve “property rights, personnel issues, medical care, labor disputes”; 7 have “no specific demands”; and 6 involve “holding public officials accountable for inaction and misconduct.” Before the intervention of social work organizations, the analysis and judgment of petitioning events by petitioning departments are reflected in the content recorded in the petitioning system and the case reports submitted to higher authorities, including “personal matters, not within the legal functions of the department,” “legal procedures have been completed, matter processing is concluded, no longer accepted,” “no factual basis, no legal or policy basis,” “following the trend of abnormal petitioning,” and “policy execution is not understood,” corresponding to the four types of demands from the public. It can be seen that petitioning departments classify all 41 cases as unreasonable or repressive demands, denying the rationality and legality of the demands. After the intervention of social work organizations, they re-encode the public’s demands, combining them with their deep-seated needs, and write them into case files to be submitted to petitioning departments, then uploaded to the administrative system and copied to higher authorities, thereby changing petitioning departments’ perceptions of the public and their matters. In the 41 cases, social work organizations re-encoded demands as “supporting the needy (economic, employment, or difficulties in children’s education),” “information disclosure,” “family and neighborhood conflicts,” “mental distress, mental illness treatment and care needs,” or “loneliness in old age.” From the re-encoded petitioning demands by social work organizations, petitioning departments understand that the public’s abnormal behaviors have reasonable factors, influenced by traditional ethical culture of helping the disadvantaged, making it easier to empathize with the public and view them as worthy of help. When the public is seen as deserving of help, the willingness of petitioning departments to respond to their demands increases.
At the same time, social work organizations strive to align the re-encoded demands with the legal functions, operational modes, behavioral norms, and logical thinking of petitioning departments, allowing petitioning departments to quickly understand the public’s interests and swiftly propose targeted measures to effectively resolve petitioning disputes. For example, in the 41 cases, services provided for the demand of “supporting the needy” include “employment training, job recommendations, educational subsidies, major illness subsidies, and minimum living security”; for the demand of “information disclosure,” services include “disclosure of demolition files and policies”; cases involving “family and neighborhood conflicts,” “mental distress, mental illness treatment and care needs,” and “loneliness in old age” are referred to social work organizations for continued service, where social work organizations accompany them in rebuilding family social support systems, providing professional psychological counseling, linking resources for mental illness screening and treatment, and offering ongoing care and regularly organizing entertaining and skill-enhancing activities. When the deep-seated needs of the public are met, their petitioning behaviors tend to become rational, gradually reducing or even stopping. Thus, social work organizations, by re-encoding demands, simultaneously meet the behavioral objectives of petitioning departments’ pursuit of order and the public’s quest for rights, fundamentally easing the tension between supply and demand.
In this way, petitioning departments transcend generalized, indiscriminate service supply, responding more actively to the personalized and diversified deep-seated needs of the public. When the deep-seated needs of the public are met, petitioning behaviors will gradually reduce or even stop, in turn satisfying the petitioning departments’ pursuit of order. The behavioral motivations of the public’s quest for rights and the petitioning departments’ pursuit of order are simultaneously satisfied, fundamentally easing the tension between the two sides of petitioning supply and demand, resolving the dislocation dilemma of petitioning.
4. Public Service Supply and Organic Collaboration between Government and Society
Essentially, the dislocation dilemma of petitioning reflects the contradiction between the limited public service supply of the government and the growing diverse needs of the public. This issue is not only an important topic for improving social governance effectiveness in China but also a perennial topic in academia. In response, academia has proposed a transformation from governance to governance, from good governance to good governance, which implies that “the state can no longer solve all problems through its actions.” Therefore, the concept of governance indicates that the subjects of public service supply include not only the government but also social organizations as non-governmental institutions; the supply methods rely not only on the coercive power and control of the government but also on various flexible and professional methods of social organizations; the quality of supply depends not only on whether legal orders are effectively executed but also on whether the supplied services are recognized by the public. This also means that in the process of public service supply, the government and social organizations need to cooperate, including interactive dimensions of shared responsibility, cognitive homology, resource exchange, trust building, mechanism connectivity, and power sharing to achieve high-quality public service supply that meets the increasingly diverse needs of the public. However, focusing on specific governance areas, existing measures to resolve the dislocation dilemma of supply and demand mostly emphasize either the supply or demand side separately. Taking petitioning social work as an example, the function of social work organizations has been positioned to change the behavior of the demand side public. Therefore, based on the concept of governance, the organic collaboration framework emphasizes the need to extend the focus of social work organizations to the tension between the supply and demand sides, finding the behavioral motivation convergence points between petitioning departments and the public through shared responsibility and cognitive homology, in order to fundamentally resolve governance dilemmas.
Although the empirical materials of this article mainly come from field investigations and case analyses in H and L, in China’s traditional experimental promotion model of “crossing the river by feeling the stones,” these cases, although fragmented, can also serve as a solid foundation for the future nationwide promotion of new governance models. The governance thinking contained in these successful local models will also be learned or imitated by other regions, thereby influencing the gradual transformation of national governance models. This article showcases the potential impact of social organizations on administrative organizations within the system through petitioning social work, highlighting the feasibility of improving social governance effectiveness.
The realization of these impacts and feasibility is not only due to the professional capabilities and input of social organizations but also, more importantly, the organic collaboration framework provides sufficient space and smooth channels for social organizations to share information and express opinions, and government departments are willing to listen to and adopt the information and opinions they provide. Compared to the principal-agent relationship, the advantage of organic collaboration lies in the fact that the public service supply plans are reached through joint discussions between government departments and social organizations, achieving consensus. The process of discussion includes the exchange of information between both parties, the collision of cognitive perspectives, and mutual persuasion. It is important to emphasize that the advantages of organic collaboration can be realized through the design of the institutional environment, where the most fundamental aspect is power sharing. Power sharing does not mean that government departments delegate the power to provide public services and social governance to social organizations, but rather that, based on mutual trust, sufficient space is provided for social organizations to participate in the formulation of petition resolution plans, smooth channels are constructed for social organizations to express their views, and the public’s wishes conveyed by social organizations are seriously considered and appropriately adopted. From the cases in H and L, it can be seen that there are various mechanisms that promote mutual trust between government departments and social organizations, such as regular communication meetings, periodic information exchanges, and mutual professional training. These mechanisms lay a solid foundation for power sharing, thereby better leveraging the advantages of organic collaboration.
Regarding the institutional environment for cooperation between government and social organizations, many studies have thoroughly discussed how to design and cultivate systems that empower social organizations to participate in governance. This type of research has greatly promoted the initial development of social organizations, equipping them with a relatively complete professional training system and professional capabilities. Today, social organizations have participated in social governance across various fields, with an increasingly broad scope and deeper levels of involvement, transitioning from participating in public service supply to participating in social management. Therefore, the next step in the modernization process of China’s governance system in the new era requires consideration of how to shape a positive institutional environment that promotes the role of social organizations, where the design of the institutional environment should maintain the unique attributes of both the government and social organizations while constructing channels and platforms for power sharing, shared responsibility, and cognitive homology between the two.
5. Conclusion
Based on the practical major issue of how to coordinate the use of social resources to improve the social governance system of co-construction, co-governance, and sharing, and enhance the effectiveness of social governance, this article uses the petitioning social work project as a small entry point to analyze the mechanism by which social work organizations resolve the dislocation dilemma of petitioning supply and demand through the two pathways of shared responsibility and cognitive homology. Grounded in the major academic topic of how to resolve the contradiction between the government’s limited public service supply and the public’s growing diverse needs, this article emphasizes the importance of shaping an institutional environment for power sharing through positive cases of organic collaboration between social work organizations and petitioning departments, exploring how the intervention of social organizations in public service supply can alleviate supply-demand contradictions.
This article innovatively expands the research perspective, extending the focus of resolving the dislocation dilemma of public service supply and demand to the tension between the two sides, compared to traditional methods of separately expanding supply or diverting demand, focusing on finding the convergence points of behavioral motivations between supply and demand. This approach is more likely to fundamentally ease the tension. Since social organizations possess grassroots attributes, they can understand the needs of the public. At the same time, when collaborating with government departments, social organizations can also understand the behavioral logic of service supply from government departments. Therefore, social organizations can find the convergence points of both sides based on an understanding of the behavioral logics of supply and demand. This is precisely the significance of multi-subject co-governance: social organizations participate in social governance and ultimately produce results that align with common interests.
Although this article starts from the governance technology level to explore the mechanisms of social organizations, in practice, the process of social organizations exerting shared responsibility and cognitive homology also impacts the political construction level. Taking petitioning social work as an example, the intervention of social work organizations brings petitioning governance back to the dual objectives of the petitioning system at the political construction level: rights relief and order stability. The first article of the “National Petitioning Regulations” states that the purpose of the petitioning system is “to maintain close contact between the people’s governments at all levels and the masses, protect the legitimate rights and interests of petitioners, and maintain petitioning order.” The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China further elaborates that the purpose of strengthening and improving petitioning work is to “smooth and standardize the channels for expressing public demands, coordinating interests, and protecting rights.” It can be seen that China’s petitioning system simultaneously pursues the dual objectives of order stability and public opinion expression, rights protection. This pair of objectives is equally important and has a subtle tension; emphasizing order stability alone may compress the space for public opinion expression and rights protection, or produce negative effects. For example, coercive suppression may temporarily regulate petitioning order but could compress the space for public opinion expression, even provoking more intense petitioning behaviors. Due to China’s pressure-type system, this subtle tension is amplified in grassroots petitioning governance. The accountability pressure transmitted from top to bottom leads grassroots petitioning departments to prioritize maintaining petitioning order. After the intervention of social work organizations, they find the mutual convergence points between order stability and public opinion expression, rights protection, ensuring that the service supply of grassroots petitioning aligns with the dual objectives of order stability and public opinion expression, rights protection. Thus, from a macro perspective, the intervention of social work organizations promotes the outputs of the petitioning system to align with the public’s willingness to express and protect their rights, enhancing the legitimacy of the government. Moreover, the grassroots nature and service orientation of social organizations prompt government functions to return to a citizen-centered approach and emphasize public responsibility, which not only helps resolve the contradiction between limited supply and the increasingly diverse needs but also reconciles the contradiction between state will and social autonomy, reflecting the superiority of the socialist system and the direction of the modernization of China’s governance system.
So, how can we better leverage the role of social organizations in governance? The key lies in the design of the institutional environment for power sharing. Just as the newly established Social Work Department in China coordinates and leads people’s petitioning work, its leadership role is not to directly control the behaviors of petitioning departments or social organizations like social work organizations, but to shape the behavioral environment of public service, including the rules, processes, and incentive settings for organic collaboration between government and social organizations. There are also contradictions between public service supply and demand in other governance areas in China today. How to construct a smooth and friendly institutional environment that promotes organic collaboration between government and social organizations, combining their respective strengths to resolve supply-demand dislocation issues in various governance areas is an important topic worthy of serious research by both academia and practice, beneficial to promoting the modernization process of China’s governance system.
(Originally published in Governance Research, Issue 1, 2024)
Image and text editing | Zhang Zexu, Zhang ZhenFirst review | Xu DongtaoSecond review | Hu ChongmingFinal review | Yan Guoping
END
[Note] Due to space limitations, references are omitted;
Please refer to the printed publication for citations in the text.
Key Topics and Call for Papers｜Key Topics for 2024｜Insights into China’s Governance: The Zhejiang Phenomenon and Experience｜Smart Law｜In-depth study and implementation of the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China｜“20th Anniversary of the Implementation of the ‘Eight-Eight Strategy’”｜Table of Contents｜2022-2023 General Table of Contents｜2023.06｜2023.05｜2023.04｜2023.03｜2023.02｜2023.01｜2021-2022 General Table of Contents｜2022.06｜2022.05｜2022.04｜2022.03｜2022.02｜2022.01｜2020-2021 General Table of Contents｜Insights into China’s Governance: The Zhejiang Phenomenon and Experience Column｜Grassroots Governance Modernization and the Zhejiang Phenomenon｜“Why the Fengqiao Experience Endures?”｜Three “Governance” to “System”?｜“Democratic Consultation” Maturity and Standardization?｜Understanding China’s Governance Requires Setting Aside Preconceptions｜The General Significance of the “Zhejiang Experience” Lies in Addressing Universal Issues｜Explaining the Grassroots Logic of China’s Governance from an Interdisciplinary Perspective｜“In-depth Study and Implementation of the Spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China” Column｜Li Baogeng｜Liu Honglin｜Tang Huangfeng｜Chen Lixu｜Theme Education Column｜Dong Ying｜Hu Chenghuai｜Dai Yuqi｜Expert Discussions｜Grassroots Social Governance｜The Universal Significance of Common Prosperity and Chinese-style Modernization｜“20 Years of the ‘Eight-Eight Strategy’” Column｜Public Service Cooperative Supply｜Grassroots Teams Managing Law Enforcement｜County Medical Community Reform｜Equalization of Urban and Rural Public Services｜Four Platforms for Grassroots Governance｜Hot Topics｜Political Efficacy of CPPCC Members｜Artificial Intelligence｜Common Prosperity｜Chinese-style Modernization｜Carbon Peak and Carbon Neutrality｜People’s Livelihood · Governance｜Special Articles｜Zhang Wenxian, Xu Yong, Qiu Zeqi, He Xianming｜Fan Fengchun｜Wen Hong｜Ren Jiantao｜Jiang Xiaoping｜Guo Yong｜XU Jialiang｜Chu Songyan｜Yan Jirong｜Zhang Wenxian｜Qi Weiping｜Tan Ankuai｜Lin Mingang｜Yu Jianxing｜Li Shi｜He Yanling｜Ren Jiantao｜Liu Tao｜Shen Manhong｜Chen Lijun｜Tang Yalin｜He Da’an｜Zheng Lei｜Meng Tianguang｜Academic Conferences｜The Fourth Contemporary China Governance Frontier Forum｜Chinese-style Modernization and Grassroots Social Governance｜The Digital Governance Experience of Zhejiang｜Learning and Implementing Xi Jinping’s Thought on the Rule of Law to Promote the Modernization of National Governance｜