The causal configurations of provincial health policy innovation in China: an analysis of the food safety standard filing policy

Li Li; Guanghua Han; Yanting Chen; Zilin Zhang; Xiao Fu

doi:10.3389/fpubh.2023.1259717

The causal configurations of provincial health policy innovation in China: an analysis of the food safety standard filing policy

Front Public Health. 2023 Nov 30:11:1259717. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1259717. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Li Li¹, Guanghua Han¹, Yanting Chen², Zilin Zhang¹, Xiao Fu³

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Healthy Yangtze River Delta, School of International and Public Affairs, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
² Lord Byng Secondary School, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
³ Zhejiang Informatization Development Institute, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China.

Abstract

Introduction: According to China's Food Safety Law of 2015, the filing of food safety enterprise standards is a policy innovation led by p9rovincial governments in China. However, there are significant differences in the development of the "Food Safety Enterprise Standard Filing Policy" between provincial governments across the country. This study aims to explore the internal mechanisms driving autonomous innovation by provincial governments in the absence of administrative pressure from the central government, to better understand the policy innovation mechanism in the Chinese context.

Methods: Crispy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (csQCA) method is used to identify the innovation mechanism.

Results: This study found that provinces with good provincial economic resources and strong government capabilities are prone to policy innovation, and the influence of internal factors of provincial governments is stronger than that of external factors.

Discussion: When provincial economic resources and capacity are weak, endogenous factors in the province also help achieve proactive policy innovation by provincial governments. The research results reveal how provincial governments construct local policies in the absence of administrative pressure from the central government.

Keywords: enterprise standards; filing system; food safety; policy innovation; qualitative comparison.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

China
Filing*
Health Policy*
Nutrition Policy

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This study is supported by Humanities and Social Science Fund of Ministry of Education of China (20YJC630033, 22YJC630024), Philosophy and Social Sciences Foundation of Shanghai (2019BGL022), National Natural Science Foundation of China (72272046, 71802065), National Social Science Foundation of China (22CGL053, 22FJLB020).