ABSTRACT
The IECLG Awards Programme was the most influential and widely recognised programme on local government innovation in recent decades. Inspired by the Innovations in American Government Awards programme created by Harvard Kennedy School, the IECLG Awards Programme was an independent nonprofit academic programme created in 2000 and first implemented in 2001 by the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau, the Central Party School of the Chinese Communist Party, and Peking University. The IECLG team consisted of dozens of experts with backgrounds of political science, public administration, economics, and sociology. These experts evaluated the local innovative practices according to six main indicators, comprising innovativeness, participation, effectiveness, importance, efficacy, and social acceptability. In Chapter 4, I provide a detailed review of the local governments’ innovative practices in China by examining the IECLG Awards Programme from 2001 to 2015. I first briefly introduce the history, organisation, and operation of the IECLG Awards Programme. I then descriptively analyse the applicants, finalists, and winners of the IECLG Awards Programme. Finally, I show the typology and distribution of the IECLG winners and finalists.
