Administrative Incentives and the Logic of Rural Governance

In the context of resources going to the countryside, how to achieve effective grassroots governance and how to understand the prevailing formalism in current grassroots governance is a complex theoretical issue. Various combinations can be formed between the strength of administrative incentives and the assessability of grassroots governance affairs. The combination of strong incentives and weak assessability is an important reason for the lack of effectiveness of grassroots governance. The cycle of state power is also key to understanding the effectiveness of grassroots governance. At the current stage, farmers are moving to cities as never before, the social structure in rural areas is being restructured as never before, and the grass-roots governance system remains flexible, which helps to adapt to the rapid changes that are taking place in rural China. From the perspective of effective grassroots governance, there is no absolute incentive system that adapts to any conditions, but when there is always an increase in entropy in grassroots governance, the state adjusts the system in a timely manner to grasp the scale of state power. The state adjusts the incentive system and decentralizes power to maintain effective grassroots governance, thereby adapting to the great changes taking place in rural China.