The Rhythm of Government: Attention in China's Central- and Provincial-Level Executive Meetings

Government attention plays a crucial role in agenda -setting and ensuring good governance. This article examines the distribution, stability, fragmentation and transmission of government attention using data from 2,840 government executive meetings at central and provincial levels in China. The findings reveal distinct patterns in attention allocation between the central and provincial governments. While the central government focuses predominantly on the economy, provincial governments show a notable interest in organizational functioning and environmental protection. Furthermore, provincial governments consistently address a broad spectrum of policy areas, in contrast to the more unstable attention focus of the central government. Interestingly, the concentration of attention at the central level is comparable to that of Western counterparts, such as Britain and Australia. Additionally, panel data analysis shows that provincial governments respond to the central agenda. Ceteris paribus, an additional mention of a policy area by the central government correlates with a 0.109 times increase (OLS regression) or a 1.918 percent increase (Poisson regression) in the number of mentions at the provincial level. These findings suggest that the diverse patterns of attention allocation and the hierarchical transmission of attention make the Chinese government an organized and agile entity capable of concerted efforts to advance national interests.