在今天，重新思考政府已成为一个世界性的课题。正如世界银行推出的1997 年世界发展报告《变革世界中的政府》开篇所指出的：“在世界各地，政府正成为人们注目的中心。全球经济具有深远意义的发展使我们再次思考关于政府的一些基本问题”。在全球化、地球村、信息革命以及经济、政治、文化和思想观念交往如此迅猛发展的新时代，一个市场经济国家的政府，到底应该干什么？如何使传统的政府构架及其运行模式、管理理念和公共服务，更快地适应新时代的发展要求，更加高效、低价、廉洁地为公众服务？这是中国面临的新问题，也是一个世界性的难题。随着各项改革发展进入更加艰难的攻坚阶段，政府改革应走向何处？中国的政府建设应如何展开？应该用一种什么样的世界眼光来重新审视政府改革？这一系列问题也越来越引起人们的深思。政府规模与一个国家的行政管理效率、经济增长和社会稳定密切相关，如何把政府规模控制在适度的范围，始终是各国行政改革追求的目标。政府作为一种社会政治组织，无论是从自身发展轨迹还是从社会发展的要素来看，政府规模都是不断增长的。政府规模扩张说到底源于内外两个因素，即行政权的扩张和外部环境的需求。政府规模的增长意味着可能的政府失败及市场与社会的萎缩。我国政府规模是否适度，不仅关系到行政管理体制改革目标的设定，也影响到市场经济的发展乃至社会的稳定。因此，合理政府规模的选择应成为我们亟待解决的问题。寻求和实现适度政府规模是各国纷纷追求的目标，特别是已经被机构臃肿和“精简——膨胀——再精简——再膨胀”怪圈困惑很久的中国政府来说，实现一个高效廉洁、规模适当的政府是许多人的愿望。但是，对于什么是适度规模的政府并非仅仅是职能少、机构小就可以区分清楚的。因此，本文研究的主要目的就是探讨有关判断政府规模是否适度的标准，并希望以此来判断应该从哪些方面来进一步地规范和划分政府的规模，同时通过与国外政府规模的比较，从政府规模的角度来审视我国目前进行的机构改革问题，为我国构建适度政府规模提供一些新的思考。全文共分六章。第一章导论，主要阐述本论文写作的选题背景、研究意义、文献综述、研究方法、创新及不足。第二章为适度政府规模的内涵、指标体系及其影响因素。从分析政府起源问题入手，在厘定政府规模、政府成长、政府发展等相关概念基础上，提出适度政府规模核心概念；然后分析衡量适度政府规模的数量和质量指标，并对影响政府规模的内外因素进行阐述。第三章为政府规模扩张的多视角理论分析，从政治学、行政学、经济学三种学科视角分析政府规模的扩张问题。政治学视角从国家和社会的关系、政府合法性两个层面分析；行政学视角以管理层次和管理幅度为基础，分析了组织结构规模扩张和政府职能扩张问题；经济学视角通过运用瓦格纳的“政府活动不断扩大法则”、皮科克和怀斯曼的“梯度渐进增长理论”、马斯格雷夫的“经济发展的支出增长理论”、公共选择理论、制度经济学的交易成本理论工具综合分析，认为政府规模扩大归因于社会需求、经济发展、“经济人”追求“个人利益最大化”和“部门利益最大化”导致的内生交易成本增加等因素。第四章为政府规模对中国经济、社会领域的影响。首先从财政收入、财政支出占GDP比重、政府公务员数量、行政管理费占国家财政支出的比重三项指标入手分析了我国政府规模成本；其次回顾了中国政府机构改革的历程，并对历次机构改革进行总体评析；最后分析政府规模对中国经济、社会领域的正向及负向影响。第五章为发达国家政府规模的动态变化及其对中国的启示。首先从政府职能规模的演变、精干的公务人员设置、政府机构的数量分析了发达国家政府规模的动态变化，然后分析了发达国家适度政府规模寻求的实践路径及其对中国的启示。第六章重点探讨适度政府规模构建。认为应从以下几个层面来构建我国适度政府规模：构建适度政府规模的理念；职能构造——从全能主义到有限、有效政府；建立扁平化、弹性化、高效化的组织结构；加强公共预算体系建设，优化政府支出结构等。

Now, it is a global issue that takes the government into reconsideration. Just as the paper—Government in the changing world points out, “The government has been the focus all over the world. It makes us reconsiderate the basic problem of the government.” In the new era of globalization and informationization, Economy, politics and culture have been developed rapidly, under this background, as a government of market economy, what is the function of it? How can we make the framework, the conception and public service match with the requirements of the new era to serve the people by the high effect-honest, low valence and clean government. It is not only a new problem in China, but also a severe challenge in the world. With the deepening of the reform, how we construct our government and how we comment the Government’s reform have been provoked our thinking.The government scale has close relationship with the efficiency of administrative management, economic growth and the stability of society. It is always a goal that how to keep a proper government scale. As a political organization, the government scale has been enlarging not only from its own development history but also from the elements of the society development.The expansion of government scale is from the inner-external factors, which can be explained the enlargement of administrative power and the demand of society. It means the failure of the government and the decrease of market and society. Whether the government scale is moderate or not, it matters not only the setting of our reform objective, but also the development of marker-oriented economy and the stable society. So, it is a problem that can be solved by the efforts of several generations. Since, it is an objective to pursuit a moderate government scale for many countries. As for Chinese government, it has been bewildered by the phenomenon of Streamline organizations- overstaffing in organizations. So it is our wish to build up a moderate government. But the standard is not clear for us that judges government moderately or not. Then, this thesis focus on the standard of the moderate government scale.Furthermore, comparing with the government scale of foreign countries, it considers Chinese government reform and put forward new ideas to fulfill the moderate government scale in China. The full text can be divided six parts altogether. The first part mainly states the background, the significance of the study, research on domestic and foreign, method of the study, the innovation and the insufficiency.The second part is about the connotation of moderate government scale, correlation essential factor and target system. It is mainly states three questions: Delineation on the government scale, the government growth, government development. By analyzing the origin of government .It proposes the index quantity and the quality on the government scale and analyzes the inner-external factors how to influence the government scale.The third part analyzes the expansion of the government scale by methods: politics, administration and economics. It contains the relations of state-society, the science of administration on politics view. It analyzes administrative level and administrative scope on administration view. “Wagner Principle”, “Wiseman gradient theory” and Musgrave “economical development growth theory”, public choice theory, the analysis of System economic transaction cost.The forth part is the influence of moderate government scale on the development of Chinese economic and politics. It analyzes the government cost. Then reviewed the reform of organization in China, Furthermore analyzed the reason of Streamline organizations-overstaffing in organizations. It proposes the positive and negative influence of government scale on the development of Chinese economic and politics.The fifth part is government scale dynamic change in western countries and the enlightment to China. First it analyzed the change of the developed country government scale, that is, the formation of the government scale. Second, after analyzing the seeking route for the moderate government scale of foreign countries, it analyze the enlightenment to China.The final part mainly discusses how to build on the moderate government scale. The suggestions are the followings: Innovates administration idea; Limits government function scope; rebuilds the government functions—from the almighty government to the limited and effective government;builts the flat, elastic and effective organizational structure; Strengthens the public budget system construction and optimizes the expense structure and so on.