The Evolution of Government's Public Service Purchase Policy: A Historical Institutionalism Framework of Analysis

Public service innovation is the eternal theme of government management. Scientifically recognizing the change process, evolution logic and dynamic mechanism of the government's public service purchase policy is not only an important support for grasping the policy direction and optimizing the policy design, but also a realistic demand for promoting the quality and efficiency of public services and accelerating the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity. Based on the analytical perspective of historical institutionalism, the government's purchase of public services in China has experienced three important stages: local exploration, standardized development, and deepening reform. Its historical evolution has been profoundly influenced by situational factors, institutional factors, path dependence, and key nodes. The demand for government function transformation and social governance mechanism innovation, as well as the need for service object needs change and public service supply model innovation, are the driving forces behind policy change. Looking ahead, the government's purchase of public services should focus on standardizing and adjusting the setting of guiding catalogs, improving the needs assessment of service purchase, perfecting the implementation process of service purchase, and strengthening the process supervision and evaluation of results, so as to promote the high-quality development of the government's purchase of public services.