Zhipeng Ye & Zelin Xue(Correspondence)

ABSTRACT: Expert involvement in China's policy process has grown significantly since 2012, while the evolving motivations driving experts to act as policy entrepreneurs have received limited attention in the literature. This article examines how the changing political climate steers the rising involvement of experts in China's internal consultative information system. Through qualitative analysis of participatory observation and interviews, we find that the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) political reforms since 2012 have reconstructed the organizational incentive structure of government‐funded research institutes, extrinsically motivatingexperts to write zhuanbao (专报, internal reports) for consultative services to the Party‐state. Experts seek to enhance their writing skills and innovate strategies due to mixed intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, including financial rewards, career prospects, and professional reputations. This study contributes to the literature on policy entrepreneurship by introducing the concept of “extrinsically motivated policy entrepreneurship” and highlighting the role of top‐down political pressure in shaping policy entrepreneur emergence in non‐Western contexts.

《Governance》，2025(2)

Governance由Wiley和国际政治科学协会（IPSA）政府结构与组织研究委员会（SOG）联合出版，是公共管理学、政治学两大学科的社会科学引文索引（SSCI）来源期刊，入选2024年公共部门研究领域AJG（ABS）四星级期刊（共5本）。