The development of community governance in China: involution and precarious professionalisation

ABSTRACT

From 1949 to the 1980s, the Communist Party of China (CPC) adopted a “mass movement” strategy to avoid bureaucratisation and maintained a semi-formal mode of community governance. After the 1980s, China’s community governance policies were re-directed towards corporatisation and professionalism, and mass movement was combined with technical and quasi-professional strategies. This article demonstrates that regardless of the changing discourse from people-centred to modern “professionalism”, China’s community governance remains authoritarian resilience. Local government bodies continue to expand their power networks to local civil spaces, altering the professionalisation of governance at the community level. Consequently, the modernisation of grassroots governance has created an involution trap and resulted in a precarious professional scenario for social work. This article argues that the true road to the modernisation of community governance is neither a semi-formal mode of governance nor new public management strategies but through professionalisation to promote the democratisation of grassroots governance.

摘要

从1949 年到 20 世纪 80 年代，中国共产党主要采取群众运动策略来避免基层治理的官僚化，以维持半正式化的社区治理模式。 20 世纪 80 年代以后，中国社区治理政策被重新导向企业化和专业化，采取的是群众运动结合技术性和半专业化的治理策略。本文阐明，不管是采取以人民为中心的话语还是现代专业化话语，中国的社区治理依然保留着权威韧性。地方政府部门继续通过修改专业化，把他们的权力网络延伸到基层社会空间。因此，基层治理的现代化过程一方面导致治理内卷化，另一方面也导致低下的社会工作专业图景。本文认为，未来，中国基层治理现代化既不能回到单纯的群众运动策略，也不能仅仅采用新公共管理策略，而是真正通过专业化来推动基层民主治理。

KEYWORDS:

• China
• community governance
• mass line
• bureaucratisation
• professionalisation
• involution

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. The term was translated from the political term, 群众路线. There are multiple historical pieces of evidence that explain the “mass line”. For example, “if we want to mobilise people to join the revolutionary war, … we should be concerned about their life problems, from land, labour problems to fire, grains, oil and salt problems. We must stay close to the people to inflate their positivity, to feel their pains, to understand their interests, to solve their production and life problems” (Z. Mao [1934] 1991, 138). In the 1942 Yanan rectification movement, Mao stated that linking the mass to the party was one of the three greatest principles of the CPC. In the plenary report of the Seventh National Congress of the CPC, these principles were officially confirmed as the foundation of the CPC’s operations (The Editorial Board 2019, 82–83).

2. Translated from 五社联动, which means “community associated with social work, social organisations, volunteers in community, and public charity”.