Risk Creation and Risk Avoidance:Behavioral Logic of Grassroots Government
The field research in S county Z province,and X county H province,found that the risk-producing behaviour of grass-roots governments mainly manifested itself in the form of exceeding top-down regulations/requirements governing the behaviour of grass-roots governments,aiming at increasing disposable financial revenue or increasing their control over limited grass-roots finances in order to allevi-ate the contradiction between supply and demand faced by the governments.This behavior is generated by the dual pressure of fiscal scarcity in the county and the pressure of performance under the horizontal competition structure.Due to the path dependence on"resource-intensive"performance,the government has generated a large number of demands for financial resources,which are difficult to satisfy through the current scarcity of financial resources.In order to control the risks to a manageable level,the grassroots have turned to risk-avoidance behavioral strategies such as welcoming inspections,maintaining stability,and capturing elites.