摘要
美国总统作为联邦政府行政部门名义上的总负责人,对官僚机构的领导却经常力不从心。从委托-代理理论视角而言,总统作为委托人,官僚机构作为代理人,在政策偏好不一致以及信息不对等的情况下,常会出现“代理人丢失”的问题,从而对委托人的政治议程形成阻碍。以美国时任总统特朗普领导新冠肺炎疫情防控工作为案例,可分析总统如何在官僚政治中遭遇“代理人丢失”问题。具体而言,特朗普主推的政治议程内容包括反建制、反精英、鼓吹阴谋论、主打经济牌以谋求连任等。面对疫情,总统通过人事、预算、发声表态和暗中控制的手段试图对负责具体防疫工作的联邦公共卫生机构施加政治影响。而卫生机构官僚则通过国会、媒体和官方发布会等渠道屡次发声,从而坚持科学导向,澄清事实,但也传递了与总统立场不一致的信息,造成了不利于总统议程的舆论和政治压力。总统领导联邦政府时遭遇上述问题,根本原因可追溯到分权制衡的政治制度。因此,由此导致的美国国家治理问题或将长期持续。
The president of the United States,as the acting head of the government,is often ineffective in leading the government.From a perspective of the principal-agent theory,an agency loss problem occurs when asymmetric information exists together with differences of preference between the principal(the president)and the agent(the bureaucrats).This paper conducts a case study of former US president Donald Trump haunted by an agency loss problem when he tried to deal with the Covid-19 crisis with the help of the bureaucracy.President Trump is a man of anti-establishment,anti-elitism and conspiracy theories.He also counted on a robust economy to get reelected.Therefore,in the face of a Covid-19 crisis that went against his aforementioned agenda,he strived to control the bureaucracy via various means from budget to sabotage.The public health authorities,however,pushed back against the president through rhetoric in multiple cases,which put much political pressure on Mr.Trump and stopped him quite effectively from getting what he had wanted.Checks and balances in the American political system is the source of the agency loss problems in president-bureaucracy interactions.Therefore,difficulty in governing will sustain.
作者
郭子凡
GUO Zi-fan(School of International Relations and Diplomacy,Beijing Foreign Studies University,Beijing 100089,China)
出处
《太原学院学报（社会科学版）》
2024年第3期12-21,共10页
Journal of Taiyuan University(Social Science Edition)
