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Comparison and driving factors of policy content reproduction across government tiers: A case study of the Role Model City for Safe Development policy in China
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DOI：10.1080/12265934.2026.2661041.png)
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Abstract
En 中文
Formal national policy documents are key instruments for enhancing state governance capacity. Differential textual adjustments made by local governments at different administrative tiers to central documents – i.e. policy content reproduction – can lead to heterogeneous implementation and thereby affect policy outcomes. Using China’s Role Model City for Safe Development policy, initiated in 2010, as a case, this paper employs an LDA-based weighted approach to compare the extent and driving factors of content updating and elaboration by prefectural and provincial governments, thus contributing to the existing literature. The study finds a structurally differentiated pattern in the drivers of policy content reproduction – ‘similarity in form, divergence in substance’ – between the two tiers. Both are jointly pulled by pressure from production accidents and signals in central policy documents, yet they diverge markedly with respect to factors such as per capita GDP and fiscal self-sufficiency. The study further confirms a U-shaped relationship between prefectural policy adoption speed and the level of policy content reproduction, with a turning point at 0.81 years. This study proposes a conceptual analytical framework for understanding central – local differences in policy texts and their operating mechanisms, and provides empirical evidence to inform the formulation of context-appropriate strategies for enhancing urban safety and resilience.
A weighted latent Dirichlet allocation topic-model captures the policy content reproduction.
Policy content reproduction differs between provincial and prefectural governments.
Central signals and accident pressure shape urban safety policy texts.
Prefectural adoption speed shows a U-shaped pattern in policy content reproduction.
Provincial fiscal autonomy supports stronger adaptation of central texts.
Keywords:
Policy content reproduction
resilient cities
role model city for safe development
policy diffusion
textual similarity
LDA
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