Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 2, 2022

The Tension between Rule of Law and Effectiveness in Governmental Governance and Its Solution

(Abstract)

Fan Bonai and Lin Zheyang

Given the ideals of good law and good governance, achieving the parallel advance of rule of law and effectiveness is a major issue for the modernization of governmental governance. Unlike the Western context, in which the “rule of law vs. effectiveness” tension grows up through the interaction between judicial and administrative organs, in Chinese governmental governance this relationship forms endogenously in the course of the modernization of governmental governance, a modernization in which the construction of rule of law and effectiveness are interconnected. Therefore, the independent construction of a rule of law government and governmental effectiveness also leads to multiple tensions between administrative autonomy and the expansion of powers, between rigid law and dynamic governance, between enclosed structures and open systems, between individual rights and technological privilege, and so forth. The current frameworks for assessment of the rule of law, the inclusive rule of law, and technological regulation and adjustment have more or less overlooked key integrative elements such as rules, procedures, and evidence. The reflective governance suggested by the sociology of law, meta-governance ideas, and the concept of evidence-based decision-making has the potential to achieve theoretical integration of rules, procedures, and evidence in governmental governance, creating a stronger explanatory power for the resolution of the rule of law vs. effectiveness tension endogenously formed in governmental governance.