Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T12:52:45.600Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Grid Governance in China's Urban Middle-class Neighbourhoods

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2019

Beibei Tang
Beibei Tang*
Affiliation:
Department of China Studies, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. Email: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines the so-called “grid governance” scheme, a widely used grassroots governance strategy implemented in urban China in recent years. Drawing on data collected in multiple cities from 2011 to 2016, it analyses in what ways, and to what extent, the state employs the grid governance scheme to resolve neighbourhood conflicts and reinforce governance in Chinese urban middle-class neighbourhoods. The findings highlight complex interactions under the scheme among the residents, the state and market actors in neighbourhood governance, including the resident volunteers, residents’ social groups, residents’ committees and property management companies. By coopting middle-class resident volunteers, maximizing the existing political influence of the retired urban elites, and establishing Party organizations in middle-class residential communities, the grid governance scheme has become a major vehicle for resident mobilization and conflict resolution, and a key governance mechanism to reinforce the Party's leadership in middle-class neighbourhoods.

摘要

摘要

本文分析了网格化治理这一近几年在中国城市基层治理中得到广泛应用的治理模式。基于２０１１年至２０１６年在中国多个城市的资料收集，本文分析了网格化治理模式是如何在城市中产阶层社区治理中得到应用，从而辅助社区冲突的解决和强化社区治理。本文强调了在网格模式下居民，政府和市场之间复杂的互动。这其中包含了居民志愿者，群众团体，居委会和物业公司在社区网格中的互动。通过招募中产阶层居民志愿者，将城市退休精英的政治影响力最大化，和开展中产阶层社区党建工作，网格化治理模式逐渐成为动员居民和解决冲突的主要途径。与此同时，网格化治理也成为加强党支部在中产阶层社区的重要模式。

Keywords

neighbourhood governancegrid governanceParty buildingresident mobilizationmiddle classChina社区治理网格化治理党建居民动员中产阶层
Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 241 , March 2020 , pp. 43 - 61
Copyright
Copyright © SOAS University of London, 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Atkinson, Rowland, and Blandy, Sarah. 2005. “Introduction: international perspectives on the new enclavism and the rise of gated communities.” Housing Studies 20(2), 177–186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bohman, James. 1998. “Survey article: the coming age of deliberative democracy.” Journal of Political Philosophy 6, 400–425.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cai, Yongshun. 2005. “China's moderate middle class: the case of homeowners’ resistance.” Asian Survey 45(5), 777–999.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cai, Yongshun. 2008. “Social conflicts and modes of action in China.” The China Journal 59, 89–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chambers, Simone. 2003. “Deliberative democratic theory.” Annual Review of Political Science 6, 307–326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dryzek, John. 2010. Foundations and Frontiers of Deliberative Governance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fleischer, Friederike. 2010. Suburban Beijing: Housing and Consumption in Contemporary China. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Gutmann, Amy, and Thompson, Dennis F.. 1996. Democracy and Disagreement. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1989. Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Han, Zhang. 2015. “Party building in urban business districts: organizational adaptation of the Chinese Communist Party.” Journal of Contemporary China 24(94), 644–664.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
He, Shenjing, and Lin, George C.S.. 2015. “Producing and consuming China's new urban space: state, market and society.” Urban Studies 52(15), 2757–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
He, Shenjing, and Qian, Junxi. 2017. “From an emerging market to a multifaceted urban society: urban China studies.” Urban Studies 54(4), 827–846.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
He, Yong. 2016. “Wanggehua tansuo de Beijing jingyan” (The Beijing model of grid governance). People's Daily, 16 May 2016.Google Scholar
Huang, Youqin. 2005. “From work-unit compounds to gated communities: housing inequality and residential segregation in transitional Beijing.” In Ma, Laurence J.C. and Wu, Fulong (eds.), Restructuring the Chinese City: Changing Society, Economy and Space. New York: Routledge, 192–221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huang, Youqin, and Clark, W.A.V.. 2002. “Housing tenure choice in transitional urban China: a multilevel analysis.” Urban Studies 39, 7–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, Ching Kwan. 2007. Against the Law: Labor Protests in China's Rustbelt and Sunbelt. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Li, Si-Ming, and Huang, Youqin. 2006. “Urban housing in China: market transition, housing mobility and neighborhood change.” Housing Studies 21, 613–623.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, Zhigang, and Wu, Fulong. 2006. “Socio-spatial differentiation and residential inequalities in Shanghai: a case study of three neighbourhoods.” Housing Studies 21, 695–717.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ma, Laurence, and Wu, Fulong. 2005. Restructuring the Chinese City: Changing Society, Economy and Space. New York, NY: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ministry of Civil Affairs. 2015. “Notice on further reduction of workload of residents’ committees,” 13 July, http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2015-07/24/content_2902338.htmGoogle Scholar
O'Brien, Kevin, and Li, Lianjiang. 2006. Rightful Resistance in Rural China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Read, Benjamin L. 2003. “Democratizing the neighbourhood? New private housing and home-owner self-organization in urban China.” The China Journal 49, 31–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Read, Benjamin L. 2007. “Inadvertent political reform via private associations: assessing homeowners’ groups in new neighborhoods.” In Perry, Elizabeth J. and Goldman, Merle (eds.), Grassroots Political Reform in Contemporary China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 149–173.Google Scholar
Read, Benjamin L. 2012. Roots of the State: Neighborhood Organization and Social Networks in Beijing and Taipei. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Rocca, Jean-Louis. 2013. “Homeowners’ movements: narratives on the political behaviours of the middle class.” In Chen, Minglu and Goodman, David S.G. (eds.), Middle Class China: Identity and Behaviour. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 110–134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tang, Beibei. 2015. “Deliberating governance in Chinese urban communities.” The China Journal 73, 84–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tang, Beibei. 2018. China's Housing Middle Class: Changing Urban Life in Gated Communities. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Tang, Wenfang. 2016. Populist Authoritarianism: Chinese Political Culture and Regime Sustainability. Oxford: Oxford Univeristy Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thornton, Patricia M. 2012. “The new life of the Party: party-building and social engineering in greater Shanghai.” The China Journal 68, 58–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomba, Luigi. 2005. “Residential space and collective interest formation in Beijing's housing disputes.” The China Quarterly 184, 934–951.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomba, Luigi. 2008. “Of quality, harmony and community. Civilization and the middle class in urban China.” Positions: East Asia Cultures Critiques 17(3), 591–616.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomba, Luigi. 2010. “The housing effect: the making of China's social distinctions.” In Li, Cheng (ed.), China's Emerging Middle Class: Beyond Economic Transformation. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 193–216.Google Scholar
Tomba, Luigi. 2014. The Government Next Door: Neighborhood Politics in Urban China. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Wang, Yaping, and Murie, Alan. 2000. “Social and spatial implications of housing reform in China.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 24, 397–417.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, Zhengxu, Sun, Long, Xu, Liuqing and Pavlicevic, Dragan. 2013. “Leadership in China's urban middle class protest: the movement to protect homeowners’ rights in Beijing.” The China Quarterly 214, 411–431.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wei, Liqun. 2014. “Jiji tuijin shehui zhili tizhi chuangxin” (Actively carrying forward social management innovation). Guangming Daily, 20 June 2014.Google Scholar
Wu, Fulong. 2005. “Rediscovering the ‘gate’ under market transition: from work-unit compounds to commodity housing enclaves.” Housing Studies 20, 235–254.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yip, Ngai-ming, and Jiang, Yihong. 2011. “Homeowners united: the attempt to create lateral networks of homeowners’ associations in urban China.” Journal of Contemporary China 20(72), 735–750.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhang, Li. 2010. In Search of Paradise: Middle Class Living in a Chinese Metropolis. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Zhang, Xing Quan. 2002. “Governing housing in China: state, market and work units.” Journal of Housing and the Built Environment 17, 7–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar