Page 143 - 《社会》2023年第3期

社会·2023·3

unit”， and their respective behavioral logics are also different. The former suits for
a rational bureaucracy， and its design of clear task boundaries causes the ambiguity
of the responsibility boundaries of grassroots governments in practice， leaving
institutional space for their risk avoidance strategies. The latter applies to the
political integration， and its blurred task boundary design in fact forces grassroots
governments to re鄄clarify their responsibility boundaries and enforce their sense of
responsibility. Affected by the logic of the two systems， the responsibility boundary
of grassroots governments exhibits the characteristic of “fluidity”， and
governments’ behaviors have also shifted from “risk avoidance” to “risk taking”.
Rational bureaucracy and political integration determine the dual role orientation of
“business鄄politics” of grassroots governments， which in turn affects the fluidity of
the responsibility boundary. Therefore， changes of events in the governance context
become the trigger mechanism. In this case study， the incident was initially just a
homestead dispute. However， according to the logic of rational bureaucracy， the
local government avoided the responsibility to resolve the dispute by diverting the
case to the Bureau of Justice and the Bureau of Health. When the petitioner’s
appeal to the Bureaus failed， her journey of petitioning began. Since the incident
has now transformed from an administrative incident to a petition case， the
responsibility boundary of the local government has changed， and the political
integration system began to play a major role. As a result， the local government
takes on the responsibility of dealing with petition cases using tactics of
appeasement， strict pressure， and downward responsibility transfer. This article
constructed the phrase of “fluid responsibility boundary” and used it as an
analytical framework， emphasizing the dual roles of grassroots governments and
situational change in shaping their behavior. The study contributes to the dialogues
and development of research on grassroots government responsibility.
Keywords：boundary of responsibility of grassroots government，rational bureaucracy，
political integration system， business departments， political units

风险规避作为基层政府的重要行动特征之一， 在近年来受到学界
的广泛关注（倪星、王锐，2017）。部分研究从为何规避风险的角度出发，
指出“权责不等”是基层政府规避风险的主要原因（倪星、王锐，2018；李
贺楼，2020；田先红，2021）。 另一些研究则揭示了基层政府规避风险的

· 136·