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Bringing the Party Back into the Community: Restructuring Grassroots Governance in Shenzhen

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2023

Changkun Cai Open the ORCID record for Changkun Cai [Opens in a new window] ,
Ying Liu  and
Weiqi Jiang
Changkun Cai*
Affiliation:
College of Public Administration, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China
Ying Liu
Affiliation:
School of Public Affairs and Administration, Rutgers University-Newark, Newark, NJ, USA
Weiqi Jiang
Affiliation:
College of Public Administration, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China
*
Corresponding author: Changkun Cai, email: caichangkun@hust.edu.cn
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Abstract

While burgeoning research on China's state–society relations has paid attention to the Party, little is known about how the Party interacts with diverse actors and involves itself at the grassroots level in a specific region. This article delineates Party-advancement strategies at the community level in Shenzhen since 2013. To reclaim its leading role at the grassroots level, the Party opted for “Party–government disaggregation” by framing community governance as a Party-building affair, separating the government's affairs from those of the Party and “kicking” the government out of the community. Under the rubric of “reshaping Party–mass relations,” the Party penetrated deep into the community by innovating a “centre-periphery” organizational system, absorbing community elites in a top-down way and using a “service delivery taking the lead” method in a reciprocal exchange. In the end, the Party-governance structure, in which Party–mass relations are at the core, was reframed in the communities.

摘要：

摘要：

尽管越来越多有关中国国家-社会关系的研究开始关注党的角色，但是，在具体的地方，我们对党在社区如何与不同主体互动以及将自己纳入治理结构知之甚少。本文刻画了深圳基层社区自 2013 年以来的党进策略。为了重获基层的领导地位，通过“党-政分离”，党将社区治理纳入党建工作，分离政务和党务，将政府“踢”出了社区。通过“党群重构”，党创造了“中心-边缘”组织结构和自上而下的精英吸纳体系，并将“服务引领”作为政治互惠的手段。最后，党在社区塑造了以党群关系为核心的党治结构。

Keywords

community governancestate–society relationsParty–mass relationsParty–government–society relations社区治理国家社会关系党群关系党政府社会关系
Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 254 , June 2023 , pp. 412 - 428
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of SOAS University of London

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