Building ‘Community’: New Strategies of Governance in Urban China

TLDR

China’s transition from a planned economy with largely immobile urban populations governed by workunits to a market‑driven, mobile, heterogeneous society has prompted the government to rethink urban governance strategies. The study investigates the rationale behind the nationwide “build‑community” campaign and analyzes the methods used to operationalize community governance. At the turn of the millennium, China launched a nationwide campaign to establish the residential community as the new basic unit of urban governance, employing specific techniques to implement this policy.

Abstract

Abstract Under the planned economy China's urban population was largely immobile and governed through the socialist workunit (danwei). Market reforms begun in the 1980s have culminated in the last decade with a dramatic decline of the state-sector and the emergence of a more mobile, heterogeneous and economically independent urban population. In rendering the old system obsolete, these trends have led the Chinese government to rethink its strategies for urban governance. At the turn of the millennium, a new campaign to ‘build communities’ was launched throughout the nation with the objective of establishing the residential ‘community’ as the new basic unit of urban governance. This paper explores the logic behind this policy innovation and analyzes the techniques adopted to operationalize ‘community governance’.