新时期政治压力在加强地方党政环保责任的同时，也催生了政社互动和政府回应性。由此观察到，一方面地方政府对公众环境诉求几乎达到100%回应率，另一方面却暴露出政府回应的反复、矛盾和偏差的现象。回应性权威主义等相关理论对无差别回应率下的政府回应动态特征和回应偏差问题缺乏有效的解释。由此，本研究基于“最不可能案例”原则，选择中央环保督察中的政社互动情景作为研究案例，提出如下研究问题：中国地方政府是如何回应公众的环境诉求的？为什么会出现回应的动态性特征和回应偏差的问题？其深层次的国家治理逻辑是什么？研究引入动态演化博弈思想，构建公众、中央政府和地方政府的三方演化博弈模型，将静态回应性权威主义理论拓展为动态回应性权威主义理论框架，并建构了适应性回旋的核心理论。基于大量的田野调查，实证部分一方面从成本—收益的中微观视角，解释了政府适应性回旋的现实动因，阐述了基于回旋逻辑的回应策略选择以及由此形成的回应偏差。另一方面，从国家治理的宏观角度，讨论了中央的制度信号是如何扰动地方政府的效益考量，进而形成回应的动态性和偏差的。研究的核心结论是：适应性回旋是中国地方政府寻求行动灵活性和治理有效性统一，以及平衡权威治理与民主参与矛盾的基本逻辑，它对于维持政府运作的韧性和自主性具有重要意义，是支持中国国家治理试错性探索和治理经验形成的深层逻辑。但是，基于回旋逻辑形成的应对策略多出于维系政府自身韧性的效益考量，容易产生回应偏差问题。具体来说，（1）适应性回旋是地方政府回应公众环境诉求的基本逻辑。（2）内卷化的环境治理和扩大化的政治问责过程扭曲了地方政府的效益考量，是地方政府在环境治理中回旋的现实动因。（3）适应性回旋逻辑导致政府倾向于采取竞争性、避责性和背锅式回应等策略趋利避责，这是回应偏差形成的直接诱因。（4）正式制度的错位回应信号和非正式制度的关系行为扰动了政府回应效益考量，为回应偏差形成创造了制度环境。研究的创新之处在于：第一，提出了“适应性回旋”的中国国家治理逻辑；第二，将“静态回应性权威主义”拓展为“动态回应性权威主义”，强调政府回应质量，注重宏观机制与中微观机制的交互作用；第三，从“执行偏差”延伸至“回应偏差”，丰富了地方治理研究的维度。
Political pressure not only strengthens the responsibility of local parties and the government for environmental protection, but also promotes the interaction between the government and society and strengthens governmental response in China. It is observed that, on the one hand, the response rate of almost all local governments to public environmental appeals was basically 100%. In addition, dynamic response and the phenomenon of response distortion were observed. Therefore, based on the principle of “least-likely-case”, this study using the government responsiveness in Central Environmental Protection Inspector (CEPI) as a case study, investigates the following research questions: how do local authorities respond to public environmental demands in China? And what causes the dynamic response and response distortion?Due to the limitation of the static responsive authoritarianism model, this study introduces the theories of dynamic evolution and game theory to construct a three-player evolutionary game model of the public, the central government and the local government. Based on the analysis of the stable strategy, this study expands the static theory into the dynamic responsive authoritarianism mode, and proposes that the adaptive maneuver is a critical cause of the dynamic response and deviant response on the part of local governments. Also based on extensive fieldwork, this thesis delves into the response of local authorities to public environmental appeals. On the one hand, this thesis explains the motivation for local governments to create room for maneuver and expounds on how the local authorities’ response strategy selection causes response distortion. On the other hand, from the macro perspective of national governance, this thesis further discusses how institutional signals from the central government disturb the cost-benefit considerations of local governments, thus forming a dynamic and deviant response, which is helpful for understanding “maneuver” as an adaptive mechanism in Chinese national governance.The core conclusion of the study is that the adaptieve maneuver is an important means for Chinese local governments to maintain flexibility and effectiveness, and to balance authoritative governance and public participation. It is of great significance to maintain the resilience of government operations and is an important part of China’s national governance mechanism. However, most of the coping strategies formed based on the maneuver mechanism are for the benefit of maintaining the resilience of local governments themselves, so deviation between local government responsiveness and the public will is easy to occur. To be specific: (1) the adaptive maneuver is an important approach for local authorities in responding to public appeals; (2) involuting environmental governance and expanding political accountability distort the benefit and cost considerations of local governments, which is a realistic motivation for local governments to seek room for maneuver; (3) the logic of seeking maneuver leads to the tendency of local governments tend to adopt flexible strategies to respond to the public including alternative-oriented responses, blame avoidance-oriented responses, and scapegoatism-oriented responses, which are inducements for response distortion; (4) the error signals from formal institutions and the Guxi from informal institutions disturb the cost-benefit balance of local authorities, resulting in dynamic and contradictory behaviors on the part of local governments, which provides an institutional tendency for the formation of response distortion.The innovation of this research lies in: (1) highlighting the “adaptive maneuver” as a deep logic of Chinese governance; (1) expanding “static responsive authoritarianism” framework into “dynamic responsive authoritarianism” framework, which emphasizes the quality of governmental response and stresses the interaction between macro mechanisms and micro mechanisms; (3) extending the research on “policy distortion” to further include “response distortion”, which enriches the dimension of local governance research.
