Page 9 - 《社会》2026年第1期

社会·2026·1

typical mechanisms：externality， principal鄄agent， legitimacy， and embeddedness，
thereby providing a holistic interpretive framework for project鄄based governance.
The externality mechanism addresses the spatial and temporal spillovers of project
costs and benefits， while the ambiguous division of rights and responsibilities
between central and local authorities leads to significant tensions. Moreover， it
emphasizes the logic of public goods while failing to adequately capture the logic of
modernization and development. The principal鄄agent mechanism focuses on
analyzing the organizational transmission between central and local authorities，
especially the multi鄄tasking problem， as well as the information asymmetry and
ambiguity arising from different directions of specialised and localized knowledge. It
also helps explain the bundling practices of economic development and social
welfare， and the emerging phenomena of hybrid governance and project package
contracting. The legitimacy mechanism explores how performance， procedural， and
moral legitimacy are isomorphically and heterogeneously intertwined in complex
project governance practices， and how are they manifested in grass鄄roots project
operations. The embeddedness mechanism aims to clarify the “dual鄄track” politics
and how it influences project operation modes and effectiveness.It also helps analyze
the heterogeneity of project system， as well as the institutional changes of state
governance. In addition to focusing on each mechanism separately， this paper also
provides certain prospects from the perspectives of multi鄄dimensional and
comprehensive interactions between multiple mechanisms.
Keywords：project system paradigm， externality mechanism， principal鄄agent
mechanism， legitimacy mechanism， embeddedness mechanism

一、 问题提出

在近年来的国家治理实践与话语 中 ，“项目 ”是 一 个 高 频 词 ，诸 如
“抓项目”“跑项目”“上项目”“项目会战”“项目为王”被政府、企业、社
会组织等不同行动主体频繁提及，并鲜明体现于其具体行为中。 项目制
如此广泛且深刻地嵌入当代中国的国家治理实践中，“项目治国” 之称
可谓至当。 1 作为一种研究视角的项目制大致发韧于社会学领域，并迅

1. 实际上，项 目治理 现象遍布世界各地（如 美国的 曼哈顿计划、苏联的 集 体 农庄、澳 大
利亚悉尼歌剧院的建造等），也显见于各个历史时期，如古代的金字塔、长城、运河等 大
型工程项目，计划经济时代的石油、钢铁等项目（斯科特，2004；戴维斯，2023）。 （转下页）

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