Citizen Participation in the Public Policy Process in China: Based on Policy Network Theory

Abstract

This article based on policy network theory analyzes the internal and external factors affecting citizen participation in the public policy process in the Chinese context. It displays that the policy network resources possessed by citizen are in a lower level and that their policy belief perform unreasonable or obscured, which belong to the internal factors. Besides, it also shows how the external factors, including policy network circumstance and policy network interactions among citizen and other network actors, influence citizen participation. In terms of these factors, the article provides some policies and suggestions about improving and motivating citizen participation for policy makers in taking account of how to reinforce the effect on citizen participation in the public policy process when making policies. Finally, we conclude that other network actors have not been researched deeply and further research should be laid in mass media, experts and scholars, grass-root NGO, etc.