Abstract
At the Central Political and Legal Work Conference held in early 2019, General Secretary Jinping Xi put forward clear requirements on social governance, which are “to establish a social governance pattern where the society is constructed, managed and shared by all and to create a social governance community where everyone takes responsibility and meets their duty”. It marked that the grassroots social governance officially started a stage of “governance by multiple actors” and was measured by “social effectiveness”, with the ultimate goal of “building a grassroots social governance community”. The basic pattern is a new regime of urban and rural grassroots governance with self-governance organizations as the main body and extensive participation of all parties from the society. How it was determined and evolved did not happen overnight or go to press without proof. To understand the changes in the grassroots (Grassroots governments refer to township governments. Village units and subdistricts are considered to be part of the grassroots government.) governance regime over the past seven decades, and learn about what are the external and internal dynamics of those changes, deserve further exploration.
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Notes
- 1.
Grassroots governments refer to township governments. Village units and subdistricts are considered to be part of the grassroots government.
- 2.
Yang (2018).
- 3.
Shanghai Municipal Archives (2009).
- 4.
The Chinese Local Government Innovation Award was jointly initiated by the Center for Comparative Politics and Economics of the Compilation and Translation Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, the Center for Comparative Studies of World Political Parties of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee and the Center for Chinese Government Innovation of Peking University in 2000. It aims to discover, stimulate and promote advanced experiences on reform and innovation of local governments at all levels, so as to advance socialist democracy and rule of law with Chinese characteristics and the modernization of the national governance regime.
- 5.
Records of Shanghai Public Security compiled by Shanghai Public Security Bureau Public Security History Compilation Committee, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press, 1998, p. 255, cited in the General History of Shanghai-Contemporary Society (Yuezhi Xiong, ed., General History of Shanghai, vol. 13); Survey of the Situation in Nan Ying Hua Li, Putuo District compiled by Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau Office, Shanghai Zhengfa I (53) No. 106, September 26, 1953.
- 6.
Social forces here include community organizations and various mass groups and squads mobilized by the masses.
- 7.
Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau: Interim Regulations on Organizing Shanghai Neighborhood Committees (Draft), October 1950, file B168-1-749. cited in, Jishun Zhang, 2015, A City Displayed: Shanghai in the 1950s, Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press.
- 8.
Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau, Shanghai Residents’ Committee Survey Comprehensive Report, January 31, 1953, B168-1-773.
- 9.
November 1998, Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau, the “report on implementing the Regulations of Shanghai Subdistrict Offices”.
- 10.
Website of Civil Organization Administration of the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
- 11.
Beijing Office of the Leading Group of Community Construction Work, Experience from the Pilot Project on Community Management System Reform in Beijing, November 2003.
- 12.
The concept of “two levels of government and three levels of management” refers to the system where cities and districts function as the two levels of government, and cities, districts and subdistricts function as the three levels to exercise administration. The subdistricts are the level-one quasi-government. The neighborhood committees, as residents’ self-governing organizations, have to accept the administrative tasks issued by the subdistricts in practice, which in essence turned into an administrative management system of “two levels of government, three levels of management, and four levels of implementation”.
- 13.
The Department of Party Group Work under the Community Party Work Committee and the Department of Urban Management and Community Affairs under the Community Administrative Affairs Management Center, as well as the General Office jointly established by the Community Party Work Committee and the Community Administrative Affairs Management Center. The Department of Party Group Work takes charge of 20 neighborhood committee Party organizations, responsible for community Party building.
- 14.
Ministry of Civil Affairs, 2017 Statistics Bulletin on the Development of Social Services.
- 15.
General Office of the CPC Central Committee and General Office of the State Council, Notice on Further Improving the Work on the General Election of Villagers’ Committees, July 14, 2002, Zhongbanfa [2002] No. 14.
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Zhang, Y. (2024). Changes in the Society at the Grassroots Level in China. In: Social Development and Social Changes in China . Research Series on the Chinese Dream and China’s Development Path. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-1184-0_9
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