Suing the State: A Study of Administrative Litigation at the Provincial Level in China.
详细信息
文摘
The promulgation of the Administrative Litigation Law three decades ago marked the establishment of a legal system intended to resolve the prevalent principal-agent problem in the governance of China. The national laws and regulations,however,are not uniformly utilized. After controlling for population size,one still observes significant regional and temporal variations of administrative litigation rates. This dissertation explores the causes of such variations. I study administrative lawsuits in three Chinese provinces that represent three major regions. I also collect panel data of 31 administrative districts over six years (from 2002 to 2007) to test a number of hypotheses. I find three factors that determine how conflicts between local government officials and the local masses are resolved by the judiciary: (i) the fiscal capacity of a local government,(ii) the quality of judicial staff and the financial independence of local courts,and (iii) the institutional investment in administrative litigation. Local governments that enjoy strong fiscal capacity are less predatory and more able to afford the costs of legal compliance,which lead to fewer conflicts with the local masses. The conflicts,however,are more likely resolved by courts if they are well-funded and retain high quality judges,who tend to adjudicate routine lawsuits against government officials and agencies in a relatively fair manner. In addition,more conflicts will be channeled through the judiciary if the regional leaders are motivated to invest in the institution of administrative litigation.