Transfer of Master of Public Information Administration [MPA] program and implementation in China

Current comparative studies exploring Chinese administrative reforms within the broader international context of administration tend to compare Chinese administrative reforms with industrial democracies. In other words, current studies on the topic of policy transfer and learning from the West are mostly in the category of interpretative research aimed at developing a better understanding of the learning phenomena in current Chinese public administration reforms. Popular researchers ‘from the West’ have failed to acknowledge that ‘learning’ is locally based. In order to fill this theoretical gap in comparative oriented research, this research aims to further develop the literature by recognizing the need to explain what has been transferred and the underlying reasons for the Chinese administration system from a party-state perspective and through the mechanism of policy transfer literature. The focus of this dissertation is to better understand how the regime development struggles in communist China affect how policy transfer is understood and interpreted in the Chinese administrative system. In order to develop the basis for understanding and analyzing policy transfer, this research develops a multi-level analysis, including the central steering level and local implementation level. This thesis applies case study method to explain policy transfer elements that are based on Jowitt’s model. After applying elements of Jowitt’s policy transfer model to analyze Chinese transfer of Master of Public Administration (MPA) program, this thesis found that MPA policy transfer from Western countries, especially from the United States, was a network that includes both ‘hard transfer’ and ‘soft learning’. ‘Hard learning’ aspects of the MPA which include cadre training tools, programs and implementation are more telling of international policy in terms of influences on recipient policy changes in cadre training system. Yet ‘soft learning’ aspects are professional and systematic conception that are differed from the pre-existing training approaches. This research strives to demonstrate how communist party adaptations serve the furtherance of regime development, while at the same time incorporating policy transfer elements from abroad. The evolution of MPA training within the Chinese system of administration demonstrates the continuing balancing between central control and local implementation, maintained by the Chinese communist regime.